I ordered this book with instructional funds from our charter school along with other young adult fiction that was recommended by Ambleside Online. My daughter never read it. One of the things I valued as a parent while raising my girls in their pre-adolescent phase was reading aloud. I only dug in my heels hard on a few things really and one of them was I insisted on reading aloud to them regularly. Not everyone was always happy about it. Hub never grew up being read aloud to it it wasn't in his lexicon of parenting. The other thing I insisted on was camping and hiking. A lot of other things were pretty negotiable: eating habits, bedtimes, showering. About a year ago, I think I finally gave up. Both of my girls read prolifically and they flat out told me that reading aloud together wasn't a priority.
This book was one I imagined reading together, but I pulled it out and finally read it on my own. Hub and I actually started it together, but we got bogged down with some of the detailed wolf stuff. The author actually went to Alaska and spent weeks observing wolves so her science in this book is amazing - in regards to the behaviors of wolves, how they survive, and communicate with one another within the hierarchy of the pack. This is interesting to me - but only in the broad strokes version - so I skimmed over some of the more detailed accounts.
The latter part of the book got into the sub culture of the Inuit tribe that the author had also done a great job researching. This part is my passion: the anthropology stuff of indigenous groups so I read every word of that section. Jean Craighead George is just a great writer. I love how she is succinct but artful.
The relationship between Miyax and her dad Kapugen was particularly charming.
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