Kid me would have had difficulties with the hunting and the sad events. Adult me was too busy worrying that something bad would happen to Lupa. These are a seriously BIG questions. They have filled academic tomes (not so much fun) and animated films (much more fun but a bit light on the facts and to be honest rather sloth focussed). Wolf Rd reached new artistic and commercial heights in 2022 with the release of "Bloom & Disconnect," the group's sophomore effort of fully original material. Headlined by the singles "Way Down," "Burn All Of Your Bridges," and "Bend" - the EP amassed thousands of streams, and helped the band to garner over 100,000 views on YouTube. The Village of Indian Head Park in conjunction with the Cook County Department of Transportation and Highways (DoTH), has initiated a Preliminary Engineering and Environmental (Phase I) Study for 2.3 miles of Wolf Road from 79th Street to Plainfield Road. Wolf Road is mostly a two lane roadway under Cook County DoTH jurisdiction that primarily falls within the Villages of Indian Head Park and Burr Ridge. The City of Countryside and Village of Willow Springs are also adjacent to the corridor. Elka is orphaned when she is seven years old and taken in by a reclusive man living in the woods. She affectionately calls him Trapper and he teaches her how to survive in the wild. A decade later she visits a nearby town and finds a wanted poster featuring Trapper's distinctive tattooed face. Her entire worldview is shattered; the man she'd built up in her head "as some kind a’ god" unforgivable crimes. She may be his next target now that she knows the truth. She goes on the run in hopes of finding the parents who abandoned her to mine for gold in the far north town of Halveston. But the more distance she gets from Trapper, the more she starts remembering the events of their life together. She starts seeing these moments in a different light and wonders if she shares some of the blame for his crimes. What follows is a tale of revenge and second chances, as Elka faces the brutal, unpredictable conditions of the wild and the even more dangerous threats from the "civilized" world.

I do love post apocalyptic stories, orphan stories, survival stories, and coming of age stories, and so this book was definitely my cup of tea. Then also, Hughes’ animals prowl and skitter on the margins: ‘Autumn’s the time for spiders. Fat sacs huddled in the middle of big targets, waiting for grub’. (Can’t you just hear the Laureate’s Yorkshire grain here?) The wheatear’s Zorro-like mask, the stink of the bleeding urine-soaked body of a badger, they are all abounding in their musky, earthy presence. And as the wolf draws ever closer, closer, it’s shaggy patches and amber eye conjures up that same monstrous creature that stalks throughout Hughes’ output. Told in the first person the book is completely inside Elka's head. You might think that sounds boring but this book is anything but that. it’s a western-themed novel set in the now even more wildernessy wilderness of post-Event canada, where our young narrator elka discovers that the gruff man she only knows as “trapper;” the father figure who has been raising her for the past ten years, is more than just a facially-tattooed woodsy loner, he’s a straight-up monster; a wanted man named kreagar. Monsters ain’t real ’cept in kids’ imaginations, under the beds, in the closets. We live in a world a’ men and there ain’t no good come out of tellin’ them they monsters. Makes ’em think they ain't done nothing' wrong, that it's their nature and they can’t do nothin’ to change that. Callin’ ’em a monster makes ’em somethin’ different from the rest of us, but they ain’t. They just men, flesh and bone and blood. Bad’uns, truth, but men all the same…Nothin’ a man can do can make him stop bein’ a man.”

Penelope didn't have no fat on her, no reserves for her body to live off 'tween meals. If that was the price for beauty and the desire a' men, well hell, you can keep it. Alive and ugly is better than pretty and dead. A vast adventure with a very human heart, full of wild animals, huge scenery and heart-stopping danger and inspired by real anthropological discoveries. For fans of His Dark Materials, Wolf Brother and The Last Bear, join Tuuli on the adventure of a lifetime and uncover the start of all our histories. They are followed by a woman law officer that is determined to bring in Elka and Trapper (who is following Elka on her journey.)

Tuuli is a prehistoric girl, travelling with her tribe through the seasons - making camp, hunting for food and protecting themselves against the many hazards that the climate throws at them. Tuuli knows there's a bigger world out there, and when she spots a strange boy lurking outside their camp, she realises that he might hold the adventure she is looking for. I thought the story was particularly brilliant at understanding child abuse and trauma, and post traumatic stress. A hugely enjoyable YA debut from Richard Lambert. The Wolf Road is a story about Lucas, the central character and only survivor of a car accident which killed his parents, causing his life to change completely. It is extremely atmospheric with rich detail of the new home and community he moves to in a remote area of Cumbria. You can almost feel the cold penetrating the rundown cottage and see the wilderness surrounding it. When a dangerous storm blows through, Elka finds herself far from home with no one to look after her until a man finds her stealing food outside his cabin. Elka calls the man Trapper and he takes her in, teaches her how to survive in the wilderness, and becomes a father to her.Read for post-apocalyptic book club. (My selection, but then events happened and I couldn't make it to the meeting. Mea culpa!) I liked it, but I just hope others did as well! I couldn’t unravel all them strands, all them lies and feelings what got knotted up over the years. Any lie can turn to truth if you believe it long enough. Leaving his friends, school and his family home behind in Somerset to live in the Lake District, Lucas must find the strength to begin to know his grandmother, start a new school and learn to live in the cold wilderness. However, Lucas cannot leave the memory of the wolf that killed his parents behind, and when he hears there is a wild wolf roaming his district, Lucas takes it upon himself to find it and kill it.

Set in the early days of humanity, when both Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals existed at the same time. Over the course of the story, the main character, a 12 year old girl named Tuuli, finds a wolf pup and an "other" (a Neanderthal) boy.This wonderful story was written for children, but I read an enjoyed it as a man of 75 years because it is so well written. An absorbing, intelligent, imaginative adventure informed by the science the author has lived with and her experience of life in appropriate lands.

But know what? That was really nice. It felt like a realistic look at that time period without artificial drama added.

Featured Reviews

I don’t even know what to say about this one. I can tell you it’s different from anything you’ve read and the only reason it’s getting 4.5 Stars instead of 5 is because I didn’t read it during the winter so I couldn’t quite get as cold and miserable as I should have.