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Summary and Reviews of Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

Wolf Brother

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 1

by Michelle Paver
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (5):
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  • First Published:
  • Feb 1, 2005, 295 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2006, 320 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Six thousand years ago. Evil stalks the land. Only twelve-year-old Torak and his wolf-cub companion can defeat it. Their journey together takes them through deep forests, across giant glaciers, and into dangers they never imagined. Ages 9+.

Six thousand years ago. Evil stalks the land. Only twelve-year-old Torak and his wolf-cub companion can defeat it. Their journey together takes them through deep forests, across giant glaciers, and into dangers they never imagined.

In this page-turning, original, and spectacularly told adventure story, Torak and Wolf are joined by an incredible cast of characters as they battle to save their world, in this first book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.

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Reviews

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Since the age of ten, Michelle Paver has dreamed about running with wild wolves in the prehistoric forest; but growing up in London her options were limited!  She grew up and became a lawyer, but chucked it in to write books for adults (including The Shadow Catcher and Fever Hill), then one day she came across her long discarded story notes about a boy and a wolf and all her childhood obsessions came flooding back!

Wolf Brother is the first in a planned six part adventure set 6,000 years ago in the forests of Northern Europe.  It's a fantastic adventure set in a meticulously researched world of hunter-gatherers, which as Paver comments is a misleading term that conjures up a picture of someone casually spotting a clump of berries and saying, 'Oh, good, I think I'll gather some of those'. In reality, hunter-gatherers were unbelievably skilled (a point also made by Jared Diamond in his classic Guns, Germs and Steel, in which, if I recollect correctly, he makes a compelling case that as a result of natural selection and their environment, the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea are, on average, more intelligent than so called 'first world*' inhabitants). 

We've been reading Wolf Brother as a family and we're all hooked.  I highly recommend this series for ages 9 through to teenagers.  Most reviewers seem to feel that it wouldn't be of interest to those over the age of about 14, but I think that's a little restrictive.  This first book lays the groundwork for a classic adventure/quest, coming of age story - and as such, I think, would hold appeal for many teens.  ..continued

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Beyond the Book



Peoples of Finland

To research this series, Paver spent time with a guide in the forests of Finland (some Finnish forests are still much as they would have been 6,000 years ago). She learned how the people lived by studying archaeology; and to understand what they might have thought she studied many groups including:

  • The San Tribe of South Africa (formerly known as the Bushmen)
  • .
  • The Ainu of Northern Japan
  • .
  • The Inuit, (formerly known as Eskimos, which simply means 'eater of raw meat', whereas their preferred name Inuit means 'the people' or 'real people')
  • .
  • The Sami of Northern Europe (the Sami were formerly known as Lapps which means 'a patch of cloth for ...

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Read-Alikes

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