Book Review: A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry

 

A wolf book review? On my blog? I must be seeing things. But in all seriousness, I apparently had a false memory of already having reviewed this book. It's aimed at younger readers, but with it being about wolves I obviously couldn't miss it in my collection. 

Swift is a wolf living in his pack, until one day another pack of antagonistic pale-coated wolves comes along and attacks them. Swift is separated from his pack and from now on has to learn to fend for himself, with him going on a large journey far away from his homeland. 

This is definitely a very basic and straightforward story. If that's what you like, it's probably for you. But I personally didn't like this book all too much. First of all, the characters were horribly bland. You'd expect Swift/Wander to feel like a well-rounded character after maturing and going on a large journey, but he feels like the most generic main character you could imagine. Even his pack members only seem to have one personality trait. I know it's a kids book, I don't expect the highest quality character development, but at least some semblance of personality for the main character would've been nice.

I also couldn't get into the writing voice of the author. The writing felt unnatural and stiff. The dialogue I think kind of worked with there being short sentences since they're anthropomorphized wolves and wolves communicate mainly through body language and not vocal sounds, but the narrator's voice had the same cadence to it, and I really didn't vibe with it. 

What is interesting to bring up about this book is that it's based on true events. Swift/Wander is based on a real-life wolf named OR-7 (nicknamed Journey) who traveled over 1600 km and was the first wolf in California since the twenties. The story obviously doesn't follow his real-life journey to a T, but it's still interesting to see the author's take on OR-7's tale. I also much appreciated the information at the back of the book provided about OR-7 and wolves in general. 

For children it's probably fine, but I really don't recommend this book to older readers even if you love wolves like me. It reads rather unpleasantly, though the illustrations were definitely very neat.

Rating: 3/5