Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2012
352 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Julie of the Wolves meets Hatchet in this middle grade novel that follows orphaned twelve-year-old Nika and her seven-year-old brother Randall as they leave a California foster home to visit a long-lost uncle in the wilderness lake country of Northern Minnesota. A phone call from their uncle sets them on a journey in a small floatplane over the thick green forest canopy, to spend the summer on a wilderness island. Nika, of all people, knows not to get her heart set on anything, but as she follows her uncle in his job studying wolves, Nika stumbles upon a relationship with an orphaned wolf pup that makes her feel - for the first time since her mother died - whole again. Here in these woods, with this wolf, none of the hard things in her past can reach her.
With vivid details about wolf behavior and a deep sense of interconnectedness with nature, this captivating first novel illuminates the intricacies of family while searching for the fine balance between caring for wild animals and leaving them alone.
Ages 10+
"Starred Review. A little gem of a book for all wild-hearted lovers of the natural world. Ages 10-14." - Kirkus Reviews
"The information about the wolves is interesting, and the story is engaging, but probably only to a younger audience with a higher reading level or to true nature lovers. This book would be fitting for environmental curriculum connections and with pushing will do well in a school library." - VOYA
This information about Summer of the Wolves was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Polly Carlson-Voiles says this novel, her first, grew out of several things: her longtime love of the wilderness country in northern Minnesota, her experiences with wolves at the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota, and her career of working with lost and found children as a secondary special ed/English teacher in inner city Minneapolis. She lives with her husband and dog near Ely, Minnesota, high on a ridge across the lake from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, where on lucky nights they listen to the music of the wolves. Visit her online at www.pollycarlsonvoiles.wordpress.com.
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