WHEN WOLVES HOWL

Get up-close and personal with a family of wolves.

Filled with solid information and keen insight into behavior and pack dynamics, this exploration of wolves’ activities as they prowl their habitat weaves in a gentle adventure about the quest for survival. Readers will easily follow along as the narrative, told in short, present-tense sentences, describes how a wolf pair and their brood of seven (some grown, some still pups) roam their forest territory. Particularly fascinating will be the accurately portrayed (some might say gory) scenes in which the father and his four eldest carry out a successful kill, gorge on their prey, and then feed the mother and the pups by regurgitating the spoils of the hunt. In another exciting segment, Haze, the most junior of the older cohort and looked up to only by his youngest siblings, improves his status in the family hierarchy when he wards off a dangerous threat and is seriously hurt. Graham’s prose is straightforward, at times leisurely paced, and portrays wolves truthfully, but her illustrations are the real draw. Using chalk pastels on sanded paper, she depicts the animals in loving detail, their black or gray fur lush and palpable, their eyes sparkling and ever alert. The wolves are endearing but are never anthropomorphized.

To be wolfed down by lovers of lupines in particular and by fans of animal stories generally.