The Wolf Wilder
by Katherine Rundell
Intermediate   Simon   232 pp.
8/15   978-1-4814-1942-0    $16.99
e-book ed. 978-1-4814-1944-4   $10.99

Feodora and her mother, Marina, are “wolf wilders” in early-twentieth-century Russia: when aristocrats tire of their pet wolves (a status symbol thought to bring good luck), the girl and her mother reverse the wolves’ forced domestication, teaching the animals how to survive in the wild despite the tsar’s orders to destroy them. When the tsar’s Imperial Army, at the command of bloodthirsty General Rakov, arrests Feo’s mother for treason and burns down their house, Feo — with the help of a young soldier, Ilya (who has the heart of a dancer, not a fighter), and her three wolf companions — makes her way to Saint Petersburg to orchestrate Marina’s escape. At first concerned only with herself and her family (human and wolf), prickly Feo has her eyes opened to the suffering of others by teenage revolutionary Alexei, who enlists her little band in fighting back against Rakov and the tsar. There are enough folkloric elements to make the tale’s more implausible events (it’s awfully easy for Feo and company to make their way past the guards into the city) feel like part of a grander tapestry: when the children breach the prison, for example, their triumph is transcendent. At the end, Rakov gets his comeuppance in appropriately gory (though offstage) fashion; Ilya finds his footing; and Feo realizes you don’t need to keep your teeth bared when you’re part of a pack.

From the November/December 2015 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.