First series The series takes place over the span of six books:
The Quest Begins,
Great Bear Lake,
Smoke Mountain,
The Last Wilderness,
Fire in the Sky, and
Spirits in the Stars. The story follows four young bears. Lusa, an
American black bear, Kallik, a
polar bear, Toklo, a
grizzly bear, and Ujurak, a grizzly bear who is able to shapeshift into any animal, but remains a grizzly bear most of the time. The story is set in various locations in Canada. The first book,
The Quest Begins, shows how each of the four bears are abandoned by or otherwise separated from their families. Kallik is separated from her mother Nisa and brother Taqqiq when a pod of
orcas eat her mother, while her brother was still on the other side of an ice canal, thinking they were both dead. After this, Kallik begins travelling to find her brother. Toklo is abandoned by his mother Oka after his brother, Tobi, dies. His mother sees how the salmon is disappearing, and leaves Toklo to travel alone. Lusa was born and raised in the "
bear bowl" at the
Greater Vancouver Zoo. Her story intertwines with Toklo's after his mother is brought to the zoo and Lusa hears of the wild. Hoping to leave her home, she escapes the zoo and searches for Toklo. Meanwhile, Toklo finds Ujurak injured and helps him; they begin to travel together. They meet up with Lusa at the end of the book. By
Great Bear Lake, the four bears have joined together and they attempt to reach the
Arctic. Although Kallik finds Taqqiq, he has joined a group of bullying polar bears who kidnap a male black bear cub named Miki. Taqqiq sees that what he did was wrong and joins the questing bears, but he leaves the group in the third book,
Smoke Mountain, when he feels he does not belong with them. The remaining four cubs learn of a place called the Last Great Wilderness (the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) in the fourth book,
The Last Wilderness, where there is food and shelter for them. After defying hardships such as hunger and the threat of humans, they finally make it to the Last Great Wilderness. However, Ujurak, who leads the journey, feels that they need to go further into the Arctic. In
Fire in the Sky, the bears leave the Last Great Wilderness and travel towards the Arctic. In the sixth and final book of the first series,
Spirits in the Stars, the four bears make it to Star Island (
Ellesmere Island), a place where many polar bears live. They find a sick mother polar bear named Sura and her nameless cub. Sura dies from sickness and the traveling four bears look after her cub, which Kallik names Kissimi. Toklo finds that he also struggles with his urge to become a proper brown bear and travel alone. The bears save the polar bears that inhabit Star Island by destroying an oil rig that was poisoning the seals that they eat, but Ujurak dies in an avalanche while saving the others. Yakone, a determined young male polar bear who lived on the strange Star Island with the sick bears, joins the group of bears at the end of the book.
Return to the Wild The series comprises six books:
Island of Shadows,
The Melting Sea,
River of Lost Bears,
Forest of Wolves,
The Burning Horizon, and
The Longest Day. The story details Toklo, Kallik, Lusa, and Yakone's return home. However, they struggle with leaving the only family they have ever known and returning home to where they have been away from for some time, as well as grappling with the loss of Ujurak. They also meet the strange Nanulak, a young and bitter male
grolar bear. While trying to find homes for each of them, their bond is tested when Kallik and Yakone feel the pull of the ice on the Melting Sea, and Toklo of the forest in his birthplace. They also run into Taqqiq, who has rejoined his bullying friends but soon realizes the error of his ways and leaves them for good, and Chogan, Toklo's father, who loses to his son in a territorial dispute but refuses to acknowledge his victory. During the last leg of the journey, Lusa is separated from the others and taken to a wildlife hospital, from which she escapes and reunites with the others with guidance from Ujurak's spirit. In
The Longest Day, the four bears arrive at Great Bear Lake and are forced to join their own kind for the Longest Day ceremonies, but the three species are determined to not help or rely on each other until a fire forces them to seek shelter together. At the end of the last book, it is revealed that the Seekers, now three years older, have their own families and cubs.
Other books The
Seekers series also features several stand-alone books published in
original English-language manga form. The books were written by Erin Hunter and illustrated by Bettina M. Kurkoski, who also illustrated
The Rise of Scourge, a stand-alone manga from one of Erin Hunter's other series,
Warriors. The books were published by the American anime and manga publishing company
Tokyopop. Each book is named after one of the main characters and each book's story is from the point of view of its respective titular character, set before the events of
The Quest Begins. The first entry, ''Toklo's Story
, was released on 9 February 2010. The second entry, Kallik's Adventure
, was released on 8 February 2011. A third manga entry, Lusa's Tale
, was announced and was slated to be released in January 2012. However, on 15 April 2011, Tokyopop announced that it would be discontinuing its services in the United States, resulting in the unofficial cancellation of Lusa's Tale'' and any potential future manga entries for the series. ==Themes==