More wolf non-fiction for younger readers!
A non-fiction with illustrations that tells the reader about the re-introduction of the species to Yellowstone in the '90s. It tells us their story, as well as some basic information about wolves in general.
Overall a beautiful book with lots of pretty illustrations. It's also quite informative, however where I do have an issue is that it doesn't always seem to know where its focus lies. The first part is mostly about the re-introduction in Yellowstone and how the wolves were brought and released there. Then the book suddenly shifts to being a more general informative book about the species in general, with information about how they hunt, what they eat and how they raise their young. But then in the last part of the book it's about the specific Yellowstone wolves again and how they changed the ecosystem for the better.
It's good to be an educational book about wolves, especially to walk both paths of being a book containing general information as well as the more specific information pertaining to the Yellowstone individuals. But the way it was structured just made the shift in the middle a bit awkward. It'd have been better if there had been a few separate chapters about this if you ask me. Yellowstone introduction part one (the release), Yellowstone introduction part two (the aftermath and positive changes in the ecosystem) and some general wolf information in a different section. Order doesn't really matter to me, but this way the book would be structured better.
Another flaw: this book likes using the "how wolves change rivers" theory, which has been contested a lot and honestly might even be a hoax. The wolves did most certainly alter the ecosystem in Yellowstone once again for the positive, but the idea that they're changing the course of actual rivers has widely been called into question. An informative article on the matter can be read over here, should you want more information on the subject. And this book was published in 2022, while the theory has been called into question since 2018, so this isn't something that changed after the fact.
Also, one flaw that's probably just a screw-up of my Dutch translation: they translated "elk" into "elanden" (moose) for the Dutch edition. When those are obviously different types of deer. The actual Dutch word for elk is "wapitihert"or simply "wapiti", but because elk and eland are pretty similar words and they're both deer species I can see where the mistake happened. But it still shouldn't have happened since this is a professionally translated book, it's not that hard to properly translate the species. Not the end of the world but still a bit annoying especially when the illustrations were clearly depicting elk also. Wolves do hunt moose, of course, but in Yellowstone they largely hunt elk and the art depicts this species, not moose.
Finally, I did feel somewhat emotional at the page where all fourteen wolves initially released into Yellowstone are all depicted using an illustration, designation (e.g. Wolf 9) and some information is given about them, including how they passed away. By now all of these wolves are of course dead, but it's just pretty confrontational to see them all listed like this, some of them even with their fate's unknown and quite a few of them dying unnatural deaths.These fourteen individuals were so hugely influential on Yellowstone, the first of the new generation of Yellowstone wolves. So pretty cool to see them all together, being given an illustration and some rightful recognition.
Overall a good book, not my favorite but it does look beautiful and has some good information about wolves and Yellowstone. I just wish it didn't 100% buy into the "how wolves change rivers" theory and was structured a little less awkwardly.
Rating: 3.5/5
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