North America's Ape Man: Searching for Bigfoot by Jennifer Rivkin

"Bigfoot tales are not new. Stories of a strange creature roaming the woods have been common in the folklore of Native American tribes for centuries.

Some communities believe that Bigfoot (or Sasquatch, his Native American name) is part of another native tribe. Others consider it to be a shy animal that is scared of humans. Some tribes worship the creature as a guardian of the forest. For some tribes, he is a monster that attacks humans and steals children.

The physical descriptions of Bigfoot creatures from differing tribes are similar. Interestingly, Indian myths from long ago describe a figure that is eerily similar to those of the most recent eyewitness accounts."

Because Bigfoot has crossed into the common culture, almost everyone knows what a Bigfoot looks like--very tall with extremely big feet, hairy and apelike, and capable of human-like behaviors such as constructing shelters and throwing rocks at human intruders. Reputable witnesses report most sightings from California to British Columbia, and some photos and one film purporting to show a Sasquatch in the wild have been published widely. Investigators have even made plaster casts of his giant footprints, with some proven to be hoaxes and some not. Should hikers and campers worry? Probably not, since Bigfoot appears to be eager to avoid humans. And then there's that smell. Witnesses report that they smelled the Bigfoot well before they glimpsed him.

Despite the unanimity of the descriptions and with many thousands of sightings, particularly in the rain forests of the northwest Pacific coast, skeptics ask why no specimens of such a large animal been captured? Why have no bodies, or even bones of the big guy ever been discovered?

One intriguing theory is that Bigfoot is a remnant of prehistoric apes or hominids, perhaps advanced enough to live in groups and bury their dead to protect themselves from discovery or predators. Recent worldwide discoveries of fossils of homo habilus, Neanderthals, and especally Denisovans (whose DNA shows up in almost all of modern human's genotypes outside of Africa and who appear to have been larger than modern humans), have lent credence to the speculation that North America's favorite apeman could be a variant hominid which has managed to survive to modern times. Farfetched, perhaps, but the author points out that several new species of previously unknown animals have been found in the past decade.

Bigfoot is our very own homegrown mystery monster, reported from Florida to Alberta to Alaska, and Jennifer Rivkin's recent Searching for Bigfoot (Mysterious Monsters) (Rosen/PowerKids Press, 2014) is a well-designed update of the lore and investigative literature. As in the other volumes in this creditable nonfiction series, realistic illustrations and actual photos keep attention focused on this intriguing mystery, while sticking to the speculative level throughout. Myth, folklore, or whatever, sightings and eyewitness accounts of this mystery monster persist, and Rivkin's balanced account also offers a curated web link that will keep young Bigfoot chasers up-to-date on the doings of Bigfoot hunters. A solid appendix for middle readers offers a glossary, bibligraphy, and index to entice young people to further reading, and accessible page design and brief paragraphis make this one a good choice to lead reluctant readers into nonfiction literature.

The Stranger Among Us: In Search of Sasquatch by Kelly Milner Halls

Twelve-year-old Montra Freitas was bored. Her parents had taken her to a remote camping site deep in the California woods, and there were no kids around. At loose ends, she strolled a down a narrow trail to play around the nearby creek.

Looking behind her, she felt the hair actually stand up on the back of her neck. Something was there, partly hidden by a large tree trunk.

"I could make out long fingers and very dark brown hair covering the entire arm. I thought. That's not a branch and it's not a bear paw, but it sure looks like an arm with a hand."

She had pondered the thought for only a moment when a face peeked out from the other side of the large tree. "It was a very flat face, very dark brown. I couldn't make out any features, except for the eyes," she said, "and they were looking right at me."

Fear bolted up her spine. She had never heard of Sasquatch. She knew only that she was alone in the woods, a full city block from the safety of her campsite, looking at something completely unknown.

Without another thought, Fietas ran.

Montra had just had experienced a rare sighting of the elusive Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot. Now a young woman, she still has dreams of that moment, even though she is believes that the Sasquatch was only curious.

The Sasquatch, "cousin" of the Yeti and Alma, the "abominable snowmen" of Asia, has been seen in every state of the U.S. except Hawaii and all but one Canadian province. His history goes back hundreds of years before European settlers in his many names in Native American languages, stone carvings, totem poles figures, rock carvings, basketry and pottery designs, and his appearances to white settlers live on in our folktales of "The Hairy Man."

Sasquatch is a genuine "cryptid," an unverified animal for which there is some physical evidence--in this case, castings of footprints which scientists type as those of a prehominid ape unlike those of humans, and in one intriguing minute of film taken in the California wilderness in 1967. Other cryptids, such as the Kraken, or giant squid, only existed in legends going back to the ancient Mediterranean and in medieval woodblock prints until recent photos made in Japanese waters proved its existence. Bigfoot hunters point to physical evidence such as "upbreaks" (single branches partially broken by an strong upward force as if to mark a trail) or ground-level dens clearly constructed of sticks and leaves big enough to be a temporary shelter for a seven-foot beast. Anthropologists agree that prehominids once existed and fossils have been found around the world which prove their existence. But where are those Sasquatch fossils?

Kelly Milnar Hall's forthcoming In Search of Sasquatch: An Exercise in Zoological Evidence (Houghton Mifflin, 2011) takes another shot at the Bigfoot mystery, one which has intrigued, frustrated, and entertained Americans for over half a century. Hall succinctly summarizes the history of the Sasquatch phenomenon in a chapter augmented by a map showing the number of sightings around North America, photos of apelike stone heads made by pre-Columbian Indians, baskets with designs of giant apelike figures woven in the Southwest, and a table showing tribes, from Cherokee to Zuni.the tribal name for the Bigfoot creature, and its English translation. She then recounts the stories of early and recent Bigfoot hunters, with photos of the castings taken of footprints over the years from huge adults to smaller juveniles, all amazingly similar. Hall deftly summarizes the evidence for and against the existence of the "real" Sasquatch, but insists that despite the lack of incontrovertible documentation, many scientists still believe that there is something out there.

Backmatter for In Search of Sasquatch: An Exercise in Zoological Evidence includes recent books and videos, a variety of websites, a bibliography and sources, glossary, and index.