"As the pages turn, the traditional charm of painting with mineral pigments on xuan paper slowly spreads, and the rich colours of an autumn forest come rushing toward you."
—— Zhang Yingying, in the July 2023 children's book recommendations, Literary News

"From a literary point of view, it is truly full of the breath of the natural world, full of the scent of grass, full of the smell of trees."
—— Bao Dongni (children's literature writer), in an interview on Guangxi TV's "Meeting Good Books"

"The writer's prose is simple, clean and pure, like the air one breathes in the forests of the Greater Khingan Range. Reading this book is a 'journey of knowledge', and even more a 'journey of aesthetic discovery'."
—— Li Pan (National Reading Ambassador; producer and host of the "Reading" program), remarks at the book launch

★ Rights sold: World English, World French, Vietnamese and Traditional Chinese.
★ Winner of the 2023 Silver Award at the Japan Illustration Award; also selected for the 2023 China Good Books list.
★ Author Blackcrane won the Mao Dun Literature Prize for New Writers; illustrator Jiu'er was the first Chinese woman named to the IBBY Honour List. They also made the companion book "The Moose of Ewenki", whose English edition won a 2020 Aesop Accolade from the American Folklore Society.
★ Adapted from Blackcrane's short story "The Bear That Slept on a Mattress": Aya, an Oroqen girl, rides into the forest with her grandfather, past hares, roe deer and eagle owls to a river valley — where is the bear? The journey holds Oroqen reverence for and dependence on the forest, and a tradition handed from grandparent to grandchild.
★ Deep in the forest, a bear sleeps on a mattress people have thrown away. A child sees for the first time that loving bears means helping them leave every human trace behind. Drawn in mineral pigments on xuan paper, the book follows a journey into the forest and shows people and all living things living side by side.

The Oroqen have lived for generations in the forests of the Greater and Lesser Khingan Ranges in northern China, as nomadic hunters. They believe that, like every living thing in the forest, they are part of the earth.

At dawn the hunting dog Kulie comes into the family's tent with the cool air of the forest, and the first thing he does back at camp is wake Aya with a lick. That day her grandfather tells her that after breakfast he will take her deep into the forest to see a bear — something she has long been waiting for. The two set off on horseback through valleys, pine woods and wetlands; hares, roe deer and eagle owls pass before their eyes, and the Oroqen elders' way of taking from nature and living with it unfolds along the way. When they reach the river valley, where is the bear?

Only halfway through the story does the bear appear: deep in the forest, a bear is sleeping on a mattress people have thrown away. What humans left behind has reached into the bear's home. So Grandpa and Aya decide to help the mother bear and her cubs get away from every human trace and back to a clean, untouched forest. The moment Grandpa burns the mattress is the quietest turning point in the book — why do it? The Oroqen have their own reasons.

The author insisted on the final page: in a winter forest thick with snow, a faint white breath rises from the mouth of a den beneath a tree. Inside the hollow it is dark but warm, and the cub sleeps curled up beside its mother. "That night, the mother bear will bring her cub into Aya's dream."

Adapted from Blackcrane's short story "The Bear That Slept on a Mattress", this is a companion to "The Moose of Ewenki", winner of China's Wenjin Book Award. Jiu'er created the illustrations with traditional Chinese pigments on board mounted with xuan paper; suitable for children aged 3–6. It takes children on a real journey into the forest and leaves a gentle visual record of a vanishing hunting way of life.

Blackcrane
Of Mongol heritage, he is a nature writer and a researcher of China's native dog breeds. He grew up where grassland meets farmland, with two cream-colored Mongolian shepherd dogs as companions. His novels include Black Flame, Ghost Dog, Black Dog Haranohai, Wolverine River, Blood Colt, Smoke over Wolf Valley and Six Seasons with the Reindeer, among others; with Jiu'er he has made the picture books "The Moose of Ewenki", Twelve Puppies and The Little Hunting Dog on the Grassland. His awards include the Five-One Project Award for Outstanding Works, the National Award for Outstanding Children's Literature and the Vitaly Bianki International Literature Award, among others. In 2020 he was named to the IBBY Honour List as an author for "The Moose of Ewenki". His work has been translated into more than ten languages and reaches both children and adults. He lives on the Hulunbuir grassland, where he keeps large guardian dogs at his own camp, works to improve the breeding of Mongolian shepherd dogs, and gives puppies free of charge to herders on the grassland.

Jiu'er
Sculptor and picture-book creator. After many years in sculpture design, she began making and studying picture books in 2013, working across a wide range of subjects and styles. In 2016 she became the first Chinese woman illustrator named to the IBBY Honour List, for her illustrations in Don't Jump Rope with a Frog. Her awards include the Wenjin Book Award, an Honorable Mention at the Feng Zikai Chinese Children's Picture Book Award, the Golden Picture Book Era Award, the Chen Bochui International Children's Literature Award for Picture Book of the Year, the Aesop Accolade (US) and a Silver Award in children's literature from the Freeman Book Awards (US). She has served as a judge for the first Zhang Leping Picture Book Award and for the Golden Windmill Young Illustrators Competition at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair. Her books have been published in France, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, India and South Korea, as well as in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, China. Her main works include Sister's Big Pumpkin, Monster Mountain, Don't Jump Rope with a Frog, The Hometown I Can't Return To, Just the Right Encounter, Twelve Puppies, The Little Hunting Dog on the Grassland, "The Moose of Ewenki", The Cat Living in the Tree, Grandma Yulan's Straw Hat, The Journey, Mr. Black and His Dog, Button Soldier and The Elephant's Journey.