The Wolf Wilder: Katherine Rundell

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Up close, they looked barely more than sixteen; but the man with the door-beating fists was old, and his eyes were the oldest thing about him. Feo’s stomach bunched up under her throat. Rakov smiled, not sweetly. He took hold of Feo’s lamp, held it up to the morning light. Feo grabbed at it. After her mother is captured by an evil General Feo begins an adventure with her wolfs, her new friend Ilya and a lot of brave people. This is Russian winter set approximately 100 years after Leo Tolstoy's epic novel. There are rumblings of revolution -- an ineffectual Tsar, decadent aristocrats and the cruel General Rakov who abuses his absolute power and serves as the novel's villain. The only thing I would change was the character of the boy who accompanied Feo. He seemed to be very weak, then suddenly very strong with nothing really in between. I found this vexed me for I would have enjoyed watching the boy go through the journey slowly. Others may disagree with me, but that was how I found it. This also prevented me slightly from imagining the boy’s features for a while.

In this world, St. Petersburg aristocrats keep wolves as status-symbol house pets. But wolves can only be tamed to a point. The wolves are overfed and indulged until the day they rebel against their capricious masters and revert to their -- well, wolfish -- instincts. This is where Feo and her fierce mother Marina come in. They teach the wolves to be wild again; they return them to their rightful home and proud, fierce natures. While the adults in this world are terrified of harsh retribution -- with the exception of Marina, who has been jailed for her defiance -- the children are still wild and bold enough enough to fight against unfairness. Yes, the children show the adults the way . . . a time-honoured theme in children's literature. This is a thrilling, emotional and utterly enthralling story (perhaps my favourite in recent years) and is the perfect read for children aged 9-11. In this story friendship is so important and of course family. Not only the family you have by blood, but the family you choose to have. The story alone is beautiful, but what brings it to the next level for me is the history. Learning about wolf wilding is awesome and man was that a profession in need of a novel if there ever was one. Even more, The Wolf Wilder is set in the waning period of Tsar Nicolas II’s reign. Without feeling remotely textbooky or infodumpy, there’s a lot of history laid out really subtly in The Wolf Wilder. The man had a face made of right angles: a jutting nose and wrinkles in angry places, deep enough to cast shadows in the dark.Rooftoppers was all charm - a magical book with beautifully light prose, unforgettable characters, and a plot like a symphony - all rise and fall and elegance. but wolf wilder has bite. (chortle, chortle) it has the same kind of unconventional and bold heroine as Rooftoppers, the same killer prose, but it has much more depth. it's dark and stark and sleek and less charming than fierce. i wish the non-russian readers could feel the fullness of her grief because as for me it's an important detail

I try to get quite a lot done before 10am, so I often wake up early and write in the dark, with a cup of coffee, in bed: and I also write in libraries and cafés and anywhere I can balance my laptop.Thankfully I have never been in a situation such as this, but Katherine Rundell made you feel like you were in Feo’s shoes experiencing her tragic story. Feo’s unconditional love for the wolves even though she couldn’t control them showed the strong friendship and loyalty that this book is all about. In this book the wolves were described very well, I loved how the book emphasised that they were free and uncontrollable but safe if you were kind to them.