Title: Julie of the Wolves
Author: Jean Craighead George
Newbery Award Year: 1973
Time: in the early 1970s
Place: Alaska, various towns and the open tundra
This book begins with 13-year-old Julie wandering the Alaskan wilderness after running away from her unhappy arranged marriage. She befriends a wolf pack and, with their help, survives off the barren land of the tundra. It isn’t until halfway through the book that you learn her back story — her childhood, her mother’s death, and the nature of her arranged marriage. The story then moves back to Julie and the wolves, and we were deeply moved by several plot twists we did not see coming.
As an aside, this book was actually placed on a list of banned children’s books because of one particular scene where Julie is assaulted by her husband, Daniel. While the scene is short and not overly graphic, it did happen quickly, and I wish I would have been ready for it before I read this aloud to my younger kids.
Our rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️