***** - Excellent
**** - Good
*** - Okay
** - Bad
* - Terrible
+ - Half-star
Wolf Brother
(Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, Book 1)
Michelle Paver
HarperTrophy
Fiction, YA Fantasy
****
DESCRIPTION: In the primeval forests of the ancient past, young Torak grew up alone in the wildlands with his hunter father, learning the voices of bird and beast, tree
and stone. When the demon-bear came, slaughtering man and beast indiscriminately, Torak had no clan to turn to after his Fa fell before the monster's mighty claws. The only hope
of defeating the monster lies in seeking the aid of the World Spirit, at its mighty mountain in the cold north... but the Prophecy which sends Torak on his quest, guided by a wolf
pup with whom he shares an unusual bond, may be read in many ways, some of which call for Torak's death.
REVIEW: As one of the few humans on the planet who evidently enjoyed Disney's Brother Bear, I figured I'd give Paver's prehistoric magic-adventure tale - set in
a similar magical dawn-of-mankind world - a try. It moved fairly quickly. Torak's world, pieced together by the author from archaeology, study of surviving primitive tribal
culture, and a healthy dose of artistic license, is full of primeval wonders and dangers, though the way people keep withholding information about his father's past and the all-
important Prophecy had the faintest whiff of an author padding a story. Still, Torak and Wolf have a decent adventure, with plenty of action and danger.
You might also enjoy:
The Alexander Cold trilogy (Isabel Allende, YA Fiction - An American teen undergoes transformative experiences in the far corners of the world amid "primitive" cultures)
The Ancient One (T. A. Barron, YA Fiction - While protecting an ancient redwood grove from loggers, a girl is pulled back in time to defend the trees from a greater evil)
Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fiction - The classic story of a boy raised in the African jungle by apes)
The Dinotopia books (James Gurney, YA Fiction - Beautifully illustrated tales of a 19th-century explorer and his son who find themselves in a lost world where men and dinosaurs peacefully coexist)
The Leopard's Daughter (Lee Killough, Fiction - In prehistoric Africa, a warrior girl with a leopard's soul seeks acceptance among humans)
The Call of the Wild and White Fang (Jack London, Fiction - In two stories, a city dog must learn the wild ways of the wolf, and a half-wolf must learn the civilized ways of dogs)
The Brian Robeson books (Gary Paulsen, YA Fiction - A city boy whose bush plane crash-lands in the Canadian wilderness must learn survival skills from scratch)
The Young Merlin trilogy (Jane Yolen, YA Fiction - The boy who will become Merlin starts life as a feral child of the forests)
Brother Bear (2-Disc Special Edition)
(2003 Disney animated movie DVD, about a boy from a prehistoric tribe who is transformed into a bear to teach him a lesson about anger and love)
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