Julie of the Wolves

Originally Posted October 24, 2003

Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George. Newbery Medal 1973

What a wonderful book. This is a Newbery winner that I'd easily put in the "classic" category. I read My Side of the Mountain by the same author in fifth grade and loved it (was also Holme's favorite book as a young person, and I think I'll need to find this one to read this again now) and this is kind of a girl version of the same kind of writing. Both stories reflect this authors love of the wilderness and fascination with going solo in nature.

Julie is the english name of an eskimo girl who lost both her mother and her father as a child. She lives with an aunt for a time and then at age 13 goes according to eskimo tradition to marry a boy who is the child of one of her father's close friends. When this situation turns unbearable, Julie runs away, hoping to travel by boat to San Francisco, becomes lost on the tundra and manages to survive partly because she is able to communicate with and befriend a pack of wolves.

The story details the life and ways of the wolves as well as the skill and native knowledge of the eskimo people. Julie struggles with her plight and then eventually comes to love her simple tools and the way her skills and knowledge, these traditional ways, are keeping her alive both in body and spirit. It's a story of coming to embrace her traditions and wanting to live in the old ways, which are rapidly vanishing among the eskimos. The ending is bitter sweet, with a realization that the old ways ideal she has come to embrace may no longer be viable.

Much of this book would be enjoyed by all ages. There are several key events, however that would be better skipped or saved for younger readers (alcoholism and a sexual assault triggers her running away for example) and the complexity of the cultural survival issues that the end of the story features, would be more deeply understood by older readers, so I'd recommend it for the 10 and up gang, but sections (all the stuff about being accepted by the wolf pack is pretty wonderful) could be read by the whole family.