It can seem like a tragedy when you’re 11 and something you’ve looked forward to for ages doesn’t live up to your dreams. Samantha’s first visit to Vancouver Island starts out as a bad trip: as she writes sadly in her journal, “I made a mistake.” She gets carsick and seasick and lost in the woods. Robyn and Alex, her twin cousins who were so much fun on their visit to Toronto, have become lanky, superior 14-year-olds who tease her relentlessly. Sam is tormented for being young, short, gullible, and a city child, and for dropping Robyn’s fishing pole overboard. But Sam (Sam-bone, as Robyn calls her) displays a practical, resourceful side, spending her time alone, exploring and reading nature guides to learn the names of the West Coast flora and fauna. After all, her cousins have threatened, “there’ll be a test.” As far as Sam’s concerned, it’s a test of endurance that started back in the airport.

Cougar Cove is the second foray into fiction by West Coast writer Julie Lawson, already well established in the picture book field. This new book mixes family adventure with lots of wildlife lore, and the attractive drawings by David Powell place the young characters against a backdrop of wilderness and sea. But Sam’s mean-spirited treatment by her cousins, though it generates enough sitcom plot to carry us along until more serious threats arise, is overdrawn. By comparison, the greater dramas, such as getting lost in the bush or stumbling on a dangerous wild animal, feel abbreviated and underdrawn. The cougar seems less important as an animal than as a plot device, a symbol of a higher order of significance that transcends petty, quotidian bickerings – a wolf, whale or unicorn would have worked as well.