A review by aftanith
Wolf Stalker by Gloria Skurzynski, Alane Ferguson
4.0
National Parks mysteries? Sign me up.
Wolf Stalker is a fun little mystery obviously intended to get the target audience interested in and excited about the U.S. National Park system, and I'd wager it does a pretty good job doing that. I was particularly impressed that it, being a wolf story put out by the National Geographic Society, does not endorse the outdated, debunked "science" of wolf packs ("alpha wolves" are complete nonsense, thank you very much) and instead explains real wolf pack dynamics to child readers*. The mystery is a bit too to-be-expected, but I'm not going to hold that against the authors; in the first mystery of a series about National Parks, what other trope to start with besides poachers?
*You can read a little bit about that here, though I've gotta offer up some fair warning because that link delves into the subject via the context of abusive men justifying their assaults/behavior as being "alpha males"--which, I repeat quite strongly, are not a thing that exists.
I will point out that this story does feel a bit thematically all over the place, even if I did enjoy it. There's a lot of little things peppered in here that are kind of inexplicable and never get any justification; more glaring among these is the appearance of literal Nazi skinheads, an anti-government militia, and a group of ranchers who compare wolves to Hitler for some reason(!?). Like, why are fascism and antifacism running themes lurking in the background of this children's mystery, present yet never actually addressed? I have genuinely no idea.
The major subplot, regretfully, has much of the same problem. In it, the main character (a little boy named Jack) must learn how to extend compassion to the teenage boy (Troy) that his family is temporarily fostering. It was honestly frustrating for me, personally; if there's one thing I don't want to read about, it's anyone having to learn that the disenfranchised deserve compassion. But the moral of the story is that of course Jack's just being a dick and must learn not to be a dick... which is great and all, but it doesn't really tie thematically in to the wolf plotline. There's an argument to be made that the wolves and the teenager are both misunderstood, but the parallels aren't really there strongly enough to make a good argument on that front. So the "misunderstood foster kid" B-plot is just kind of there instead of actually serving the story.
But like I said, I did enjoy this. I also have quite a few other books in this series hanging around here somewhere, and I'm looking forward to getting into those. I'm very curious to see if this series will continue with the same family of characters (and if it does, whether or not we'll ever see Troy again) or if the next story will not only be about a different park but a whole different cast, too.
Wolf Stalker is a fun little mystery obviously intended to get the target audience interested in and excited about the U.S. National Park system, and I'd wager it does a pretty good job doing that. I was particularly impressed that it, being a wolf story put out by the National Geographic Society, does not endorse the outdated, debunked "science" of wolf packs ("alpha wolves" are complete nonsense, thank you very much) and instead explains real wolf pack dynamics to child readers*. The mystery is a bit too to-be-expected, but I'm not going to hold that against the authors; in the first mystery of a series about National Parks, what other trope to start with besides poachers?
*You can read a little bit about that here, though I've gotta offer up some fair warning because that link delves into the subject via the context of abusive men justifying their assaults/behavior as being "alpha males"--which, I repeat quite strongly, are not a thing that exists.
I will point out that this story does feel a bit thematically all over the place, even if I did enjoy it. There's a lot of little things peppered in here that are kind of inexplicable and never get any justification; more glaring among these is the appearance of literal Nazi skinheads, an anti-government militia, and a group of ranchers who compare wolves to Hitler for some reason(!?). Like, why are fascism and antifacism running themes lurking in the background of this children's mystery, present yet never actually addressed? I have genuinely no idea.
The major subplot, regretfully, has much of the same problem. In it, the main character (a little boy named Jack) must learn how to extend compassion to the teenage boy (Troy) that his family is temporarily fostering. It was honestly frustrating for me, personally; if there's one thing I don't want to read about, it's anyone having to learn that the disenfranchised deserve compassion. But the moral of the story is that of course Jack's just being a dick and must learn not to be a dick... which is great and all, but it doesn't really tie thematically in to the wolf plotline. There's an argument to be made that the wolves and the teenager are both misunderstood, but the parallels aren't really there strongly enough to make a good argument on that front. So the "misunderstood foster kid" B-plot is just kind of there instead of actually serving the story.
But like I said, I did enjoy this. I also have quite a few other books in this series hanging around here somewhere, and I'm looking forward to getting into those. I'm very curious to see if this series will continue with the same family of characters (and if it does, whether or not we'll ever see Troy again) or if the next story will not only be about a different park but a whole different cast, too.