Book Review: Children of the Night by Dik van der Meulen

 

  Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Kinderen van de nacht.

Yet another Dutch non-fiction about wolves, or more specifically wolf-human relations.

In this book, Van der Meulen takes a look at wolves and their relationship to humans, covering a wide area such as the return of wolves to the Netherlands (and more broadly speaking western Europe), wolves in lore and culture, the historical fear of wolves, werewolves, the role of wolves in fairy tales and fables, etc. 

Overall an interesting book and I had a good time reading it. Van der Meulen has a pleasant writing voice I quickly found myself getting invested in and while I already knew most facts presented in this book (having read a lot of wolf non-fiction already) I still learned a thing or two. Particularly the sections on wolves throughout history and in lore/culture interested me, having recently already read a similar book on the topic called Wolf by Kristof Smeyers.

I guess one nitpick I do have is that I wish this book was more about wolves (as in, the species itself) and not just so much on their history, culture, etc. Don't get me wrong, I loved these sections, but it just feels a bit unfocused to touch so much on those aspects and then include relatively fewer chapters containing information on wolves as a species. Things like dominance theory and their return to the Netherlands or more broadly speaking western Europe are touched on but with this being a general non-fiction book about wolves I'd expected a bit more, not just so much focus on wolf-human relations. 

Granted it's a very important topic you can't really avoid when writing about the species, but that doesn't mean we need to lose focus and write less about wolves themselves. I'd have maybe forgiven it a bit more if this was a history book like Wolf by Smeyers which I mentioned earlier, but this is more of a general book about wolves (or at least, it's marketed as such). 

Also, I wish it wasn't as western-centric as most of the topics it covers are about western Europe or North America. Wolves also live in Asia, I'd have loved more information on wolves there. How do people view them there? Are they making a resurgence there as well? What about wolves in their lore/mythology/culture/stories/history? Bit bland to primarily write from a western point of view. I get that wolves in the Netherlands are the main focus here, but if you're going out of your way to include North America and the rest of Europe as well you might as well include Asia a bit more, you know.

Overall this is still a fine book, I just have these minor criticisms.

Rating: 4/5