Here’s yet another way authors can grab and hold a reader’s attention throughout a book: passion and peril. By “passion,” in this case I mean gripping excitement and intensity. Peril, of course, is the intense danger just about to happen that keeps you from turning out the light while reading at bedtime!
Today’s book recommendation is a perfect example: The Wolf Wilder, by Katherine Rundell.
The “passion and peril” factor in The Curse of the Neverland and Becoming Piper Pan is mild compared to the epic drama in The Wolf Wilder. Here’s a summary:
“Feo’s life is extraordinary. Her mother trains domesticated wolves to be able to fend for themselves in the snowy wilderness of Russia, and Feo is following in her footsteps to become a wolf wilder. She loves taking care of the wolves, especially the three who stay at the house because they refuse to leave Feo, even though they’ve already been wilded. But not everyone is enamored with the wolves, or with the fact that Feo and her mother are turning them wild. And when her mother is taken captive, Feo must travel through the cold, harsh woods to save her—and learn from her wolves how to survive.”
This story kept me on the edge of my seat and my heart in my throat. It was glorious, achingly beautiful, tragic, victorious, and an epic story. It has a bit of the flavor of “Doctor Zhivago,” set, as it is, in the time of the Czars in Russia. Add a tight bond between wild animals and a girl, and it’s a total winner.
Like most of my favorite children’s books, it makes me wonder why more adults don’t hang out over in this section of the library! Smart, passionate, and packed with action, it’s a pleaser for adults as well.
Click here to read a really cool article about Katherine and this book, and how leaning into fear can bring you joy. By the way—really cool—looks like passion and peril are woven in this author’s personal life as well: she is a high wire walker!
Happy Reading!
**If you live near enough, come see me Friday, March 4th, 5—8pm at Hart’s Fine Books in Sequim, WA. I’ll be there during the March First Friday Art Walk, they serve wine and cheese, and they have a harpist lined up to entertain you! I’ll be there 5—8pm, signing books. (I expect to have Becoming Piper Pan for sale along with The Curse of the Neverland!)
Coming February 26, 2016
This is sensational…another book out, ANOTHER signing party!!!! Your writing skill is so evident as experienced when reading your first book,your blog postings and even in your heart felt emails. You have a way with words that carry us through the story and entwine us so that we don’t want to put the book down, finish the blog or come to good bye for now at the end of an email,we don’t want to end the connection or the story. Excited to see you Friday night.
[…] yet somehow also have substance and grit. I brought another of her books to you in The Wolf Wilder (click to read about it if you missed my […]