The Wolf's Boy: 06/16/19

The Wolf's Boy by Susan Williams Beckhorn is a tween novel about a boy and his dog. Except the boy is an early human and the dog is a proto-dog, a missing link if you will, between wolf and dog.

The book is set in the days when there were still Neanderthals. So there isn't really a written record, everything is left to the imagination.

The main character is Kai, a child with a club foot. He wants to train as a warrior but he's kept doing women's work because his deformity will keep him from every truly being a man. Gag.

As Kai and his people are pre-humans or early-humans or whatever the heck you want to call them — people from before written language and modern architecture — it's again up to the author to make things up.

Early culture does not equal indigenous culture. But that's what happens here. Kai and his people, who by the way are known as The People, end up speaking in the weirdly stilted language so often used by white writers to sound indigenous.

The only thing saving me from giving this book one star is the fact that it's completely fictional. It's not based on a real group people — beyond being early humans and Neanderthals. It can't be — so why use racist stereotypes to tell the story?

Four stars

Comments (2)

Comment #1: Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 08:59:15

>erin

I'm glad I checked out your review! I almost picked this up at the library last night. I am glad that I didn't!

Comment #2: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 at 21:31:00

Pussreboots

Lucky timing, I guess.