Yet another wolf non-fiction. Let's take a look-see.
In this book, Green tells us all there is to know about wolves (and other wild canines).
Overall this is a solid book. It's for younger audiences, but older readers can still stay engaged because it gives a lot of information. I also really want to praise it for being visually one of the most interesting wolf non-fictions I've ever read, with plenty of photos, illustrations, maps, etc. and they're all formatted creatively across the pages.
Does it have flaws though? Yes. It is a bit dated. There's a few wrong facts in here, most notably how it portrays wolf packs (using dominance theory) and the statement that Ethiopian wolves are closer related to wolves than jackals, when it is in fact the opposite. But despite being factually wrong I'll cut the book slack for this because it came out in 2001, only two years after dominance theory was debunked. I'm uncertain about when the status of Ethiopian wolves being listed as wolves or jackals changed, but I can imagine it was after this book came out.
What I do think is that the book should not have been titled Wolves though. It's a good book with a lot of information about them...but they're just one of the many canine species featured here. The book also delves into many other wild canines such as dholes, African wild dogs, dingoes, foxes, jackals, and the like. Which is super cool, I love them covering a broad subject and all, but I just think that the title and cover primarily depicting wolves is a bit misleading to the reader.
I can imagine someone who just wanted a lot of in-depth information about wolves picking this up and being disappointed that it is rather more surface level information about a lot of species rather than a super in-depth look at wolves in particular. Heck, I bought the book because I thought it just focused on wolves. I'm also interested in other canines so I'm not super disappointed or anything, but it does feel a tad misleading with that cover and title, yaknow. There's one coyote on the cover, but that's the only hint on the front cover or title that this book is about more than just wolves. The back cover gives away a tad more, but I think the title and front cover should reflect the actual subject matter at hand a bit more.
Overall I still enjoyed this book though, and if you want to read about many canines I do recommend it. To an extent. Just keep in mind that some of the information inside is dated, so I do recommend you do some further reading into the species in particular that interest you.
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment