Wolf Road: The Times Children's Book of the Week

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However, it is the menacing undertones that drive this tale as the almost mystical, certainly threatening, shadow of a wild beast lurks throughout. Lucas is certain this was the reason the car crashed and is now in fear for his life. One day when Elka was seven years old though, she found herself lost and alone in the woods. Against all odds, she was rescued and taken in by a man known only as “Trapper”. He sheltered Elka, when he could have turned away and left her to die. For the next ten years he took care of her, and even taught her how to hunt and to trap and to survive off the land. And in time, Elka came to see Trapper as her father. Abandoned by her parents after an apocalyptic event, she grew up rough in the woods with a man she called Trapper. He taught her all the survival skills she needed, and maybe a few she didn't. When Elka learns Trapper might not be quite the father figure she thought he was, she lights out on her own on a quest to find her birth parents.

Elka is a child living in the world after the Big Damn Stupid (nuclear war). Her parents left when she was a baby to make a fortune in the north panning for gold and she's been raised by her Nana in a remote cabin. A vast adventure with a very human heart, full of wild animals, huge scenery and heart-stopping danger and inspired by real anthropological discoveries. For fans of His Dark Materials, Wolf Brother and The Last Bear, join Tuuli on the adventure of a lifetime and uncover the start of all our histories. While this story would work as a standalone, an opening is definitely left for a sequel. I would be interested to find out what happens next. But now, there's a new sheriff in town. And she says that Trapper is Public Enemy #1, wanted for terrible, horrific crimes. Magistrate Lyon's quest for justice (or is it just vengeance?) sets Elka on a desperate journey north, accompanied by a young woman who could not be more different from her, trying both to escape the long arm of the law, and to find her parents.

The topography of British Columbia has changed. Wars have created a post-apocalyptic wilderness demanding a new set of survival skills. Elka is illiterate, and she often uses weren't instead of wasn't, uses a' instead of of, and abbreviations such as 'bout, 'neath, 'stead, 'hind, 'tween, and afore. At times while reading, I thought I might have caught some discrepancies, where she used the correct word rather than the one she used in its place most of the time, or the full word where she would normally use the abbreviation. This might have been done in an effort to make the text more readable, or it might have been an error in the translation of text into illiterate speak, but either way I was too caught up in the story to mark out the possible discrepancies, and this is why it gets 10/10. I seen women take this kind a' help from a man with a look a' relief on their faces. I wondered if these women knew how much easier their lives would be if they did all this stuff for themselves.”

The Wolf Road is a triumph and the spirit of Ted Hughes is never far from the world of this exceptional novel. The second thing was the naming scheme. The tribe members all had animal names, but based mostly on the Finnish language name for the animal (the author used a couple languages as stand-ins for the ancient one). Even by the end of the book I didn't have a handle on who most of the characters were because the names were just a seemingly random collection of letters. The Wolf Road is an incredible novel – dark, intriguing, absolutely beautifully written with one of the strongest and most memorable character voices I have ever read. I don’t much like roads. Roads is some other man’s path that people follow no question. All my life I lived by rules of the forest and rules of myself. One a’ them rules is don’t go trusting another man’s path. No matter if that’s a real one trodden into dirt or all them twists and turns his life has taken. People do it, they do what their mommies and daddies did, they make them same mistakes, they have them same joys and hurts, they just repeating. Trees don’t grow exactly where their momma is; ain’t no room, ain’t enough light and water so they end up wilting and dying off. It’s the same with us humans, though you wouldn’t know it to look at them most a’ the time. Ranches and stores are passed father to son, momma to girl, but there ain’t no room for it. Son tries to run things like he wants, father ain’t having none of it, they start feuding and soon that family ain’t no more. Alice Roberts is not new to media, she is a broadcaster, a specialist in, among other topics, archaeology, and history. She has presented on Time Team and other programmes with a historical leaning and has written several books for adults, but this is her debut children’s book. It is a sweeping adventure, a story with a human heart, full of wild animals, as the title may suggest, which describes some heart-stopping scenery and danger. It has been inspired by real anthropological discoveries, is therefore based on people, animals, places that existed in the past. It is going to take you on an adventure of a lifetime and help to start the discovery, uncovering of all our histories.I thought the journey that the book takes the reader on was extremely well-crafted, as the secrets that Elka has hidden even from herself are gradually revealed.

Elka and Penelope tried to eke out a living in a cabin in the woods but there's always trouble coming. The one good thing at the time that came out of it was that Elka actually talked to Magistrate Lyon and made a deal with her. I do love post apocalyptic stories, orphan stories, survival stories, and coming of age stories, and so this book was definitely my cup of tea.Tuuli is a prehistoric girl, travelling with her tribe through the seasons – making camp, hunting for food and protecting themselves against the many hazards that the climate throws at them. One a’ them rules is don’t go trusting another man’s path…People do it, they do what their mommies and daddies did, they make them same mistakes, they have them same joys and hurts, they just repeating. Trees don’t grow exactly where their momma is; ain’t no room…I weren’t following no one up through life.’ I don’t even know what to say about this one. I can tell you it’s different from anything you’ve read and the only reason it’s getting 4.5 Stars instead of 5 is because I didn’t read it during the winter so I couldn’t quite get as cold and miserable as I should have. The book begins with a bang! The first chapter shows Elka confronting Trapper, which is actually what the entire story leads up to. Knowing some of the end events did not lessen the tension for me. The confrontation captured my attention immediately, but it holds so much more emotional weight once the whole story is revealed. Despite the knowledge of Trapper's crimes, the relationship between him and Elka and her wide-eyed admiration of him is very sweet. (I never thought I would find a story about a salmon's eye endearing!) The rest of the book details the events that led to the confrontation. After Elka goes on the run, it is impossible to shake the feeling that Trapper is lurking nearby. She battles unpredictable elements in the woods. While Elka is very resourceful in the wild, she's naive when it comes to people. She spent a decade in an isolated cabin with Trapper, under strict instructions not to communicate with anyone. Despite her better instincts, she is a little too trusting at the beginning of her journey and gets into a few vulnerable situations. She also has the added stress of being chased by law enforcement, who think she is an accessory to Trapper's crimes.

Kid me would have had difficulties with the hunting and the sad events. Adult me was too busy worrying that something bad would happen to Lupa. The author has spent her whole career (decades of time) researching this period of human history, and that really showed in this book. She's worked on TV science shows about it, has written many nonfiction books about it, and does talks about it. I hope she writes more fiction books based on it, because her love and knowledge of it shines through. I thought that all the people were more than adequately explained, and they all seem believable and authentic, their personalities and behaviors and development consistently made sense. I was surprised that there was even some explanation for Trapper, something I wanted but didn’t expect because how can such a person be truly explained, as characters in books or as people in real life. It took a little while for me to sink into it and get its measure but it slowly and surely drew me in. It has a steady pace and gentle rhythm which becomes utterly charming and enthralling. The goals of the Wolf Road Corridor Study are to improve existing roadway deficiencies, bring the corridor up to current design standards, improve traffic safety and operations, accommodate future travel demands and review or improve pedestrian and bicycle accommodations. Project NeedOn a trip to town for supplies, Elka finds out that "father figure" Trapper is really cruel, murderous Kreagar Hallet. She realizes that animals hunt prey to feed their young but Kreagar is a thrill killer often scalping his victims. The Wolf Road is a post-apocalyptic story set in the near future. However, after the events of the “Damn Stupid,” that future appears more like our recent past - before the advent of electricity. The story follows Elka, a young girl passed off to her nana when her parents decided to head north in search of gold. For the next seven years, Elka and her nana eke out a meager existence in a rustic cabin in the deep woods until a massive thunderhead blows through one day and levels their home. Her nana was out for a walk at the time, and when she fails to return Elka seeks help. She knows the town is south and south is down, so she walks down every hill she finds until she’s horribly lost. Eventually making her way downriver to another cabin where she meets Trapper, a man who’ll become something like a father to her. it’s a western-themed novel set in the now even more wildernessy wilderness of post-Event canada, where our young narrator elka discovers that the gruff man she only knows as “trapper;” the father figure who has been raising her for the past ten years, is more than just a facially-tattooed woodsy loner, he’s a straight-up monster; a wanted man named kreagar. As with many books I read I guessed way too much of what characters had done and what was going to happen, but that didn’t really ruin things for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed (in some cases enjoyed might not be the proper word but for one it perfectly fits) the few parts that were unexpected for me. Wolf Rd (pronounced “wolf road”) is a high intensity band that shatters the boundaries between alternative, metal, and emo music - rearranging pieces of each soundscape to build a mosaic that breathes new sonic life.