Julie of the Wolves

Locations
Call Number: Y BOCD Fiction / George, Jean, Kids BOCD / Fiction / Classic / George, Jean Craighead
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Kids 4-week checkout	Y BOCD Fiction / George, Jean	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Kids A/V 4-week checkout	Kids BOCD / Fiction / Classic / George, Jean Craighead	4-week checkout	On Shelf

An unabridged recording of the book.
Sequel: Julie. 1994.
"A Newberry Medal Winner"--Container.
"Unabridged Fiction."--Container.
"With tracks every 3 minutes for easy book marking."--Container.
Narrated by Christina Moore.
While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.
Compact discs.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Julie of the Wolves submitted by baifamily2 on June 20, 2011, 5:23pm Jean Craighead George makes this book, Julie of the Wolves, an amazing novel by studying how wolves interact with each other and unknown visitors, and using the facts that she gained in her wolf books. Julie is a great book.

Great Book submitted by 0liviap0pp on June 24, 2011, 12:14pm Great book and quite amazing at how we can interact with other animals.

Felt like we were there submitted by tmccullough on June 21, 2012, 1:17pm The author does such a great job creating the visual imagery that we almost felt like we were there with Julie. The relationship Julie develops with the wolves is touching and her rejection of the modern world was interesting but made for a sad and lonely-feeling ending.

So Believable submitted by kathscot on August 10, 2014, 11:12am It is wonderful how believable this book is - a favorite with our fifth graders.

Dated But Kind of Interesting submitted by sdunav on August 18, 2023, 1:47pm Julie of the Wolves is another Newbery book that I remember reading as a child. Unlike most of the other books, though, before re-reading this I could not remember anything but the most basic idea of the story: a girl in the Arctic lives with a wolf pack.

Upon re-reading it, I remembered exactly why it wasn't a favorite: not much happens, until the end, and then the things that do happen aren't particularly happy.

There is a lot of explanation of wolf ecology, pack structure and society, and the tundra environment, which is interesting, but maybe not interesting enough to capture your average 5th grader's interest in the absence of a compelling story.

The insights into Eskimo (today more correctly called Iñupiat or Iñupiaq) culture were fascinating, but as with other books about Native cultures, I couldn't help wondering how much Jean Craighead George really got right.

Martha Stackhouse, a resident of Barrow, wrote a critical review of Julie of the Wolves for an education course at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks a few years ago - Google it! (Sometimes I seriously love the internet - twenty years ago, this perspective would have stayed in Fairbanks and Barrow). It may seem that some of her criticisms are minor points, but they do all add up.

I guess I'd still recommend this, with some reservations, for kids who want to read about the Arctic world. But really, as much as I love George's other books, I'd like to have a book with a more interesting story and more of the nitty gritty of Native culture on the North Slope today - preferably from someone who has lived experience there!