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celeste57 's review for:
Julie of the Wolves
by Jean Craighead George
Actual rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up.
When I was 9 years old, I picked up Hatchet for the first time, because all of the boys in my class were obsessed with it. I immediately shared their obsession and had to find anything else that featured a young person surviving alone in the wild. I read the rest of Brian’s Saga, and The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and My Side of the Mountain and the books that followed. I also read this book and the rest of the trilogy. I haven’t read Julie of the Wolves in over 20 years, and I didn’t remember nearly as much about it as I thought it did. Which made it a fun story to revisit.
I’ve always had a soft spot for any story that takes place in Alaska, so I especially loved the setting of this particular series. Julie, or Miyax, as she prefers to go by her Eskimo name, is a great character. I love that our protagonist is a very capable female, which isn’t as common in this small subgenre of children’s novels. However, I had completely forgotten how much sadness there was in this story, and that there was a scene involving a near rape. I’m often surprised when I revisit a children’s classic by the content that I don’t recall, that obviously didn’t bother me when I was a child. Which, in my opinion, is an argument for why we shouldn’t ban books to protect our kids. The vast majority of the things we’re worried about either won’t bother the children we are trying to protect, or will lead them to asking big, and very important questions.
This was a refreshing revisit, and I loved my time with Miyax and the wolf pack that becomes her family. There’s nothing like a children’s classic when you’re needing a mental palette cleanser.
When I was 9 years old, I picked up Hatchet for the first time, because all of the boys in my class were obsessed with it. I immediately shared their obsession and had to find anything else that featured a young person surviving alone in the wild. I read the rest of Brian’s Saga, and The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and My Side of the Mountain and the books that followed. I also read this book and the rest of the trilogy. I haven’t read Julie of the Wolves in over 20 years, and I didn’t remember nearly as much about it as I thought it did. Which made it a fun story to revisit.
I’ve always had a soft spot for any story that takes place in Alaska, so I especially loved the setting of this particular series. Julie, or Miyax, as she prefers to go by her Eskimo name, is a great character. I love that our protagonist is a very capable female, which isn’t as common in this small subgenre of children’s novels. However, I had completely forgotten how much sadness there was in this story, and that there was a scene involving a near rape. I’m often surprised when I revisit a children’s classic by the content that I don’t recall, that obviously didn’t bother me when I was a child. Which, in my opinion, is an argument for why we shouldn’t ban books to protect our kids. The vast majority of the things we’re worried about either won’t bother the children we are trying to protect, or will lead them to asking big, and very important questions.
This was a refreshing revisit, and I loved my time with Miyax and the wolf pack that becomes her family. There’s nothing like a children’s classic when you’re needing a mental palette cleanser.