Julie of the Wolves

This children’s book by Jean Craighead George won some awards and is recommended for ten year olds; and includes an attempted rape, a child marriage, and one of the darkest conclusions I’ve ever encountered. They were brave judges! I can imagine this being banned in libraries across America. It’s about an Eskimo girl who escapes her child marriage/rape and goes to live with the wolves. She discovers her father is still alive, but when she finally meets him, he’s not the man she thought he’d be – the great hero. So she walks back out into the snow.

If you were a great animal lover as the author is, you’d get more out of this book – I preferred the scenes with humans in it. She’s a good writer, and the details are both exact and interesting (she was a lifelong environmental scientist who knew her stuff). But for ten year olds? I don’t know.