Bella and Jingles is about a little girl named Bella who travels with her scientist parents to Alaska to study climate change. A baby polar bear becomes separated from her mother during a blizzard and seeks shelter in their barn. Efforts are made to find the mother but there is not a trace. Bella names the bear, Jingles, and begins to feed and care for her. Bella tries to teach Jingles how to fish and they become trapped on an ice floe heading for the middle of the bay. An Inuit boy and his father save Bella and Jingles and bring them to their hunting village. While they are visiting inside the igloo, Jingles returns to the bay there he finds his mother and twin cub swimming toward him. They are reunited, and Bella, tearfully, has to let go of her friend, Jingles. She loses one friend but gains a new one, his name is Nanuq. He tells her his name means polar bear in Inuit. The story ends happily with Bella and Nanuq sailing across the snowy tundra on a dog sled.