Red Wolf

by Jennifer Dance

Overview

Life is changing for Canada’s Anishnaabek Nation and for the wolf packs that share their territory.

In the late 1800s, both Native people and wolves are being forced from the land. Starving and lonely, an orphaned timber wolf is befriended by a boy named Red Wolf. But under the Indian Act, Red Wolf is forced to attend a residential school far from the life he knows, and the wolf is alone once more. Courage, love and fate reunite the pair, and they embark on a perilous journey home. But with winter closing in, will Red Wolf and Crooked Ear survive? And if they do, what will they find?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459708129
Publisher:	Dundurn Press
Publication date:	01/20/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Lexile:	900L (what's this?)
File size:	610 KB
Age Range:	12 - 15 Years

About the Author

Jennifer Dance has a passion for equality and justice. Her other novels for young people are Paint and Hawk, which was shortlisted or the Red Maple Award. An avid environmentalist, Jennifer lives on a small farm in Stouffville, Ontario.

Jennifer Dance is an award-winning and bestselling author, playwright, and composer. She is also caregiver for her second life partner, who is journeying through the decline of Alzheimer’s. Jennifer lives on a small farm in Stouffville, Ontario.

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2014
Gr 4–6—Red Wolf is a Native child living with his family when a representative of the Canadian government comes to move his family to the reservation and the children to a residential school. As Red Wolf adjusts to the people who want to "civilize" him, so must Crooked Ear, the young wolf he has befriended. The settlers have placed a new bounty on wolves, orphaning the young cub and forcing his pack to move. While the story begins with fast-paced changes for Red Wolf and Crooked Ear, things get off balance, and the book ends with both of them as adults, having skipped large chunks of the story. The transformation of Red Wolf to "George" and his eventual reclaiming of his roots is relatively well developed, but none of the secondary characters show much growth. Much of their story is told rather than shown, leading to an incomplete and emotionally ineffective experience. The author does an excellent job of incorporating historical facts (including separate endnotes on the Native people and the wolves), illustrating the devastating consequences of settling the frontier in Canada and the forced assimilation of Native children. However, she tries to cover too much context, and the narratives and characters are stretched too thin. Recommended as additional reading on the Native experience.—Elizabeth Nicolai, Anchorage Public Library, AK

School Library Journal

11/25/2013
In 1885 Ontario, “white-skin” loggers are destroying the native Anishnaabe people’s land and claiming it as their own. Five-year-old Mishqua Ma’een’gun (Red Wolf) and other children are torn from their homes and forced to attend boarding school. Red Wolf is renamed George Grant and force-fed English and Christianity by the impatient and cruel school staff. Red Wolf is devastated, confused, and abused, his wolf pendant his only comfort. When he is finally allowed to visit his family, the adjustment is jarring, and his resentment grows. Meanwhile, Crooked Ear, a wolf that bonded with Red Wolf after the wolf’s family was murdered, searches for the child. Dance’s first novel addresses a horrific historical period and details Red Wolf’s harsh awakening in painful, hard-hitting scenes. Although the characters can be one-note and the narrative blunt (when Red Wolf’s father asks what he has learned at school the boy thinks, “I learned that I am a savage.... I learned to hide inside myself and pretend I wasn’t there”), readers will finish with a strong sense of the abuses suffered by natives at the hands of settlers. Ages 9–12. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Jennifer Dance's Red Wolf is a heartrending, relentlessly compelling novel about the impact of the Indian Act of 1876 and the residential schools system upon indigenous cultures.

Canadian Materials

Red Wolf offered a realistic portrayal of what life might have been like in a residential school and the subsequent fallout of generations of children who don't know who they are. It was a good read, but a heartbreaking one.

Book Time

Although Red Wolf is marketed as juvenile fiction, it is a book that will appeal to all ages. Poignantly written from the perspective of both boy and wolf, it brilliantly encapsulates the fear, alienation and hopelessness felt by a child who is powerless against a system which seeks to annihilate his heritage, spiritual beliefs and family ties.

Stouffville Free Press

Red Wolf depicts an unquestionably shameful part of our history about which today’s children should be informed. The novel serves that purpose while reinforcing our feelings of outrage and disgust.

Quill & Quire

Children and young adults alike will want to read Jennifer Dance's novel on the intertwined stories of a wolf and a First Nation boy. It is exactly the sort of story I loved when I was a boy.

Former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario James Bartleman

This book could make a big impact on the way that non-aboriginals look at First Nations people.... I strongly believe it also has a place in healing the legacy of the residential schools within First Nations communities where lack of self identity and self respect still endure.

author of Sing the Brave Song Judith Ennamorato

Told with great empathy and careful research, Jennifer Dance has done a good job of making us feel alienated, lost, and in between worlds ... an important book for young readers about the sad history of Canada's residential school system.

author of The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden Philippa Dowding

While the topic is a difficult one, [Red Wolf] covers the realities faced by First Nations in the late 1800’s in a realistic and broad-minded manner.

Anishinabek News

Dance puts a human face to the history books by portraying the terror and confusion of a young boy ripped away from his family and forced to conform to the rules of a cruel and bigoted world he doesn't understand. What is especially impressive is how Dance manages to capture the internalized self-hatred forced upon the students of the residential schools.

Bookshelf Reviews

With Red Wolf, Jennifer Dance has come howling out of the wilderness … and I'm deeply impressed.

Giller Prize–winning author Joseph Boyden

Dance imbues the novel with lyrical prose and lilting rhythms, and the essence of what we’ve come to recognize in First Nation storytelling.

Canadian Children’s Book News

This book should be placed in every classroom in Canada. It is informative of our cultural way of life, and respectful of all creation. There are things that non-natives do not understand about our culture. This book will help with the understanding.

Chief Arnold General

The Dickensian world of any nineteenth-century boarding school, particularly a Canadian Indian residential school with the agonizing clash of indigenous and British cultures, is excellent fodder for Dance’s powers of portrayal, and she gives a memorable picture of those who worked in these institutions.

Resource Links

With Red Wolf, Jennifer Dance has come howling out of the wilderness … and I'm deeply impressed.

Giller Prize–winning author Joseph Boyden

With Red Wolf, Jennifer Dance has come howling out of the wilderness … and I'm deeply impressed.

Giller Prizewinning author Joseph Boyden

Dance imbues the novel with lyrical prose and lilting rhythms, and the essence of what we’ve come to recognize in First Nation storytelling.

Canadian Children’s Book News

With Red Wolf, Jennifer Dance has come howling out of the wilderness ... and I'm deeply impressed.

Giller Prize—winning author Joseph Boyden

Dance imbues the novel with lyrical prose and lilting rhythms, and the essence of what we've come to recognize in First Nation storytelling.

Canadian Children's Book News

With Red Wolf, Jennifer Dance has come howling out of the wilderness … and I'm deeply impressed.

Giller Prize–winning author Joseph Boyden

This book could make a big impact on the way that non-aboriginals look at First Nations people.... I strongly believe it also has a place in healing the legacy of the residential schools within First Nations communities where lack of self identity and self respect still endure.

Judith Ennamorato author of Sing the Brave Song

Dance puts a human face to the history books by portraying the terror and confusion of a young boy ripped away from his family and forced to conform to the rules of a cruel and bigoted world he doesn't understand. What is especially impressive is how Dance manages to capture the internalized self-hatred forced upon the students of the residential schools. Bookshelf Reviews

From the Publisher

There are things that non-natives do not understand about our culture. This book will help with the understanding.

Chief Arnold General Confederacy Chief from the Onondaga tribe

Told with great empathy and careful research, Jennifer Dance has done a good job of making us feel alienated, lost, and in between worlds ... an important book for young readers about the sad history of Canada's residential school system.

Philippa Dowding Goodreads

Told with great empathy and careful research, Jennifer Dance has done a good job of making us feel alienated, lost, and in between worlds ... an important book for young readers about the sad history of Canada's residential school system.

Philippa Dowding

This book could make a big impact on the way that non-aboriginals look at First Nations people.... I strongly believe it also has a place in healing the legacy of the residential schools within First Nations communities where lack of self identity and self respect still endure.

Judith Ennamorato

With Red Wolf, Jennifer Dance has come howling out of the wilderness . . . and I'm deeply impressed.

Joseph Boyden

Children and young adults alike will want to read Jennifer Dance's novel on the intertwined stories of a wolf and a First Nation boy. It is exactly the sort of story I loved when I was a boy.

James Bartleman

Children and young adults alike will want to read Jennifer Dance's novel on the intertwined stories of a wolf and a First Nation boy. It is exactly the sort of story I loved when I was a boy.

James Bartleman Former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario