LITTLE WONDER BEAR, based on a true story

Milagros is a little bear living happily in the Amazon with her mother and brother when a plane crash kills her mother and they are taken by a man who puts Milagros in his circus. Mourning her mother and missing her brother, Milagros is miserable until she befriends a little fox and, together, they comes up with a plan to escape and reunite Milagros with her brother.

SYNOPSIS

Milagros is a spectacled black bear who has a great life in the Amazon forest, picking berries, licking frogs and teasing bees with her brother, Yana Yana. The bears’ loving Mama Raymi, teaches them all about the forest, which is an almost magical place in one of the remotest regions in Peru. But in addition to all the magical wonders, the forest is filled with predators.

The worst predator turns out to be men – poachers armed with knives, guns and traps. Milagros and Yana Yana’s mother keeps them safe, at first. But when she is killed by a plane crash, the little bears are on their on.

Yana Yana stumbles across several poachers, who take him to a remote town to sell him. Milagros tries to save her little brother, thinking of everything that she has learned from her mother, ho taught her many things about the humans, who communicate in a funny language her mother called Runa Simi.

But, Mama has died before she could teach Milagros everything, and Milagros ends up getting captured, herself, put in a cage and taken to a small town circus. There, she meets a human savvy fox, Zorrito, who helps her survive in the human world. Together, the friends form a plan to escape back to the jungle. Milagros is once again free to search for her brother, and she will have to fight pumas and swim the majestic Marañón, one of the deepest rivers in the world, to get to him.

On top of those difficulties, Milagros is saddled with Zorrito, who knows a lot about humans but nothing about the natural world, having lived in captivity all his life. So, while he was a big help breaking out of the circus, he is now a burden and that puts a strain on their relationship. Poor Milagros.

But despite all that, their bond grows little by little and changes. It’s difficult for them, but hilarious for the audience.

When they encounter some humans (and are nearly caught before they escape) Milagros realizes she understands some of the human language, Runa Simi. She struggles to recall the other phrases her mother taught her, and she eavesdrops on humans, hoping to learn to speak it. She isn’t sure she’s good enough, and needs more time. But when the lives of the ones she cares about the most are in danger, she realizes she will have to do the best she can with what she knows, because she is the only one who might save them.