What do you think?
Rate this book
American Tiger
A motherless nine-year-old girl glances out her school bus window and notices a tiger licking its paws behind Target. Nobody else sees it and nobody believes her, not even her father, a local game warden, because it is well known that Bell Tern has an untamed imagination. But evidence mounts and with it, the possibility that Bell is telling the truth and a most unlikely predator could be prowling a seemingly placid suburb of Los Angeles.
Based on true events, rooted in the stunning Southern California landscape, and populated with vivid characters, American Tiger is about more than a frantic tiger hunt. It’s about a child’s quest for self-discovery, her stoic father’s struggle to come to terms with their past, and the innate wildness of every living thing.
Based on true events, rooted in the stunning Southern California landscape, and populated with vivid characters, American Tiger is about more than a frantic tiger hunt. It’s about a child’s quest for self-discovery, her stoic father’s struggle to come to terms with their past, and the innate wildness of every living thing.
326 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 2, 2025
18 people are currently reading
1410 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 25, 2025
Adam Skolnick artfully transforms an incident he covered 20 years ago while working for LA Weekly into a beautiful piece of fiction that delves into themes of loss, grief, and reconnecting with the wildness we all share. I was instantly captivated by this father–daughter story, with its lively characters and tasteful touches of magical realism. Skolnick has a talent for storytelling, a passion for wildlife, and a gift for turning a single incident into a resonant message. He is an unforgettable voice in eco-fiction.
November 26, 2025
I've been a fan of Adam Skolnick's non-fiction work for years and was excited to read his debut novel. I was not disappointed. Adam weaves a beautiful and courageous story based on actual events that is fit for ages 9-99. Anyone who enjoys eco fiction, mystical realism, coming of age, or adventure genres will love this book!
November 2, 2025
Adam Skolnick’s American Tiger prowls at the edge of belief, where truth and imagination blur into something quietly feral. It begins with a simple claim—a child sees a tiger behind a California Target—and grows into a meditation on how people tackle grief, nature, and the fragile art of paying attention.
Bell Tern, the young narrator at the story’s heart, is not a dreamer so much as an observer. Her drawings and stories are attempts to make sense of a world that rarely listens to children and even less to wonder. Her father, Jay, a weary game warden, embodies the opposite impulse: to measure, to verify, to control. The tension between them powers the book, even as it circles questions too large to answer: what do we owe the wild, and what part of ourselves must we lose to live among the tame?
Skolnick writes in crisp, sensory prose, each page steeped in the scent of sagebrush and dust. His California isn’t romantic; it’s exhausted and still beautiful, a place where housing tracts and hawks coexist uneasily. He treats both wilderness and suburbia with the same compassion, as if each were struggling to survive the other.
This novel isn’t chasing spectacle. It’s chasing truth—the kind that hides in stories people tell to stay whole. Readers looking for suspense will find quiet instead, but also wonder: the slow revelation that sometimes what seems impossible only asks for a different kind of seeing.
American Tiger is for those who love language that lingers and characters who search rather than arrive. It’s not merely a story about a tiger; it’s about the courage it takes to keep believing there might still be one out there.
Content Warning: Includes brief moments of peril involving animals and emotional themes of loss.
Note: I received an ARC of this book, but that does not impair the honesty and fairness of my writeup.
Bell Tern, the young narrator at the story’s heart, is not a dreamer so much as an observer. Her drawings and stories are attempts to make sense of a world that rarely listens to children and even less to wonder. Her father, Jay, a weary game warden, embodies the opposite impulse: to measure, to verify, to control. The tension between them powers the book, even as it circles questions too large to answer: what do we owe the wild, and what part of ourselves must we lose to live among the tame?
Skolnick writes in crisp, sensory prose, each page steeped in the scent of sagebrush and dust. His California isn’t romantic; it’s exhausted and still beautiful, a place where housing tracts and hawks coexist uneasily. He treats both wilderness and suburbia with the same compassion, as if each were struggling to survive the other.
This novel isn’t chasing spectacle. It’s chasing truth—the kind that hides in stories people tell to stay whole. Readers looking for suspense will find quiet instead, but also wonder: the slow revelation that sometimes what seems impossible only asks for a different kind of seeing.
American Tiger is for those who love language that lingers and characters who search rather than arrive. It’s not merely a story about a tiger; it’s about the courage it takes to keep believing there might still be one out there.
Content Warning: Includes brief moments of peril involving animals and emotional themes of loss.
Note: I received an ARC of this book, but that does not impair the honesty and fairness of my writeup.
December 2, 2025
As a wildlife lover who is drawn to animal fiction like Remarkably Bright Creatures and Horse, American Tiger hit all the right places.
In this magical piece of storytelling based on true events in 2005, Adam takes us on a search for a tiger through such detailed prose of the spectacular Southern California landscape, while subtly expanding on the wild interconnectedness of all things.
In this magical piece of storytelling based on true events in 2005, Adam takes us on a search for a tiger through such detailed prose of the spectacular Southern California landscape, while subtly expanding on the wild interconnectedness of all things.
December 10, 2025
American Tiger follows nine-year-old Bell Tern, a sharp and wildly imaginative kid who becomes the first person in quiet Alisaw Valley to spot a tiger wandering near a Target loading dock. No one believes her, not even her father Jay, a game warden who knows there should be no tigers in Ventura County. As more strange sightings ripple across the valley, the story blends tension, family struggle, and ecological wonder. The tiger becomes a spark that exposes fear, disbelief, and a father and daughter’s effort to bridge the widening gap between their inner worlds. The opening chapters paint Bell’s devotion to drawing and documenting wildlife, her loneliness at school, and Jay’s steady but fraying attempts to raise her while holding the wild at bay.
This book pulled me in fast. I felt a kind of fond ache watching Bell try to prove what she saw. Her imagination is so alive that you can’t help rooting for her, even when it gets her labeled as a liar. The writing hits a sweet spot. It’s warm, direct, and paced in a way that made me forget I was reading. I liked how the author paints the valley around them. The details are simple but vivid. The land feels baked into the bones of the characters. I also noticed how naturally humor and sadness sit together in the scenes. One minute I was smiling at Bell’s oddball survival kit in her backpack. The next I felt a sharp little twist in my chest as the bus full of kids turns on her when she reports the tiger.
I also found myself moved by the relationship between Bell and Jay. Their dynamic is messy in a relatable way that I appreciated. Jay tries so hard to be steady and rational, but he’s worn down. The moment he gets a report of “a striped tail” under a pepper tree, something shifts in him, and I felt it. The writing lets him be flawed without judgment, and that made me care even more. The stakes get bigger as the search spreads. Experts arrive, each with their own trauma or agenda, and everything grows more tangled. I liked that the book never leans into cheap danger. Instead, it digs into fear, memory, loss, and what wildness means in a world that keeps shrinking.
The story touched that soft place where wonder and grief live side by side. I kept thinking about how a giant animal roaming the suburbs could expose so much about the humans who live there. The book surprised me. The writing has heart. It’s clear and calm on the surface, but there’s a current running underneath it that pulled me along.
I’d recommend American Tiger to readers who enjoy character-driven stories with a strong sense of place. It’s great for people who love literary fiction that carries a hint of adventure and for anyone drawn to stories about family, nature, and the things we try to believe in. It would also hit home for readers who like books told through the eyes of kids who see the world in ways adults forget.
This book pulled me in fast. I felt a kind of fond ache watching Bell try to prove what she saw. Her imagination is so alive that you can’t help rooting for her, even when it gets her labeled as a liar. The writing hits a sweet spot. It’s warm, direct, and paced in a way that made me forget I was reading. I liked how the author paints the valley around them. The details are simple but vivid. The land feels baked into the bones of the characters. I also noticed how naturally humor and sadness sit together in the scenes. One minute I was smiling at Bell’s oddball survival kit in her backpack. The next I felt a sharp little twist in my chest as the bus full of kids turns on her when she reports the tiger.
I also found myself moved by the relationship between Bell and Jay. Their dynamic is messy in a relatable way that I appreciated. Jay tries so hard to be steady and rational, but he’s worn down. The moment he gets a report of “a striped tail” under a pepper tree, something shifts in him, and I felt it. The writing lets him be flawed without judgment, and that made me care even more. The stakes get bigger as the search spreads. Experts arrive, each with their own trauma or agenda, and everything grows more tangled. I liked that the book never leans into cheap danger. Instead, it digs into fear, memory, loss, and what wildness means in a world that keeps shrinking.
The story touched that soft place where wonder and grief live side by side. I kept thinking about how a giant animal roaming the suburbs could expose so much about the humans who live there. The book surprised me. The writing has heart. It’s clear and calm on the surface, but there’s a current running underneath it that pulled me along.
I’d recommend American Tiger to readers who enjoy character-driven stories with a strong sense of place. It’s great for people who love literary fiction that carries a hint of adventure and for anyone drawn to stories about family, nature, and the things we try to believe in. It would also hit home for readers who like books told through the eyes of kids who see the world in ways adults forget.
November 25, 2025
A beautiful, quietly powerful story. American Tiger follows Jay, a California game warden, and his nine-year-old daughter Bell, who spots an escaped tiger behind a Target—and can't get anyone, including her father, to believe her. Bell has a reputation for her big imagination—she's always sketching evidence of things she's seen that couldn't possibly be real. So when she insists there's a tiger loose in Alisaw Valley, he figures it's just another one of her episodes.
What unfolds is a story about belief, loss, and coming to terms with the past. Jay and Bell are both carrying grief they don't talk about directly, and Adam lets you feel the shape of it through what's left unsaid. But he weaves in something deeper too: grief that belongs to every living thing, and a sense of our connectedness to the wildness we're slowly training ourselves to ignore.
The book is inspired by a real tiger escape near Simi Valley in 2005. Adam covered it as a young reporter, spent time with the game wardens searching for the animal, and you can feel that grounding in every detail. The writing is captivating—sensory, assured, and deceptively effortless, with warmth and quiet humor throughout.
He builds his world through the details, and knows when to hold back—the Southern California setting comes through: the Santa Susanas, sagebrush and manzanita, subdivisions slowly eating into ranchland. He takes you inside the wildlife navigating that landscape too—their instincts, their losses, their unlikely bonds. Those moments stayed with me.
The writing and themes are approachable for all ages. I received an advance copy and can't recommend it enough.
What unfolds is a story about belief, loss, and coming to terms with the past. Jay and Bell are both carrying grief they don't talk about directly, and Adam lets you feel the shape of it through what's left unsaid. But he weaves in something deeper too: grief that belongs to every living thing, and a sense of our connectedness to the wildness we're slowly training ourselves to ignore.
The book is inspired by a real tiger escape near Simi Valley in 2005. Adam covered it as a young reporter, spent time with the game wardens searching for the animal, and you can feel that grounding in every detail. The writing is captivating—sensory, assured, and deceptively effortless, with warmth and quiet humor throughout.
He builds his world through the details, and knows when to hold back—the Southern California setting comes through: the Santa Susanas, sagebrush and manzanita, subdivisions slowly eating into ranchland. He takes you inside the wildlife navigating that landscape too—their instincts, their losses, their unlikely bonds. Those moments stayed with me.
The writing and themes are approachable for all ages. I received an advance copy and can't recommend it enough.
December 20, 2025
I have lived in Los Angeles for 10 years and have loved Los Angeles for 10 years. And for 10 years, I have listened to a very loud camp of people who say LA sucks. This book is proof of LA's beauty. Adam Skolnick captures the layers of the greater Los Angeles area from the way light reflects off of hot concrete to the pockets of nature that spring up in its shadows. And the city is just one of the "background" characters. Not only did I feel a swelling love for Southern California, I fell in love with Jay and Bell and lived in the warm fuzzy bubble that is a father and daughter desperately trying to do right by one another. For all the LA lovers and haters, I promise this book was written just for you.
December 2, 2025
American Tiger is a beautifully crafted story that is equal parts adventure, mystery, and love letter to Southern California. I was quickly enveloped by the characters and the brave little protagonist who had my allegiance from the start. American Tiger is at times heart wrenching as traumatic pasts are revealed whilst being driven towards the crescendo through sheer adrenaline and anticipation. To learn it’s based on a true story added to the suspense-What a fun ride from start to finish!!
December 11, 2025
This entrancing novel kept me glued to my ipad. The author, a well- known non-fiction writer, has in his first novel created a world where you root for an escaped tiger,her crow pal and a nine year old motherless girl. The author has created a whole world where nature is a major character. This is a wonderful change of pace from the usual fiction fare. I look forward to Adam’s next novel.
December 18, 2025
This is one of the most thought provoking, beautiful pieces of literary fiction I've read in a long time. Adam Skolnick combines the hardships of parenting, the tragedy of loss, and the wonderment of magical realism in stunning ways. I cannot recommend this book enough.
December 5, 2025
A most beautiful, relatable novel. Adam Skolnick has managed to weave nature, grief, curiosity, and humanity into a page turner!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews