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Ruff the Wolf
hardcover
103 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1966
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
April 17, 2008
This is a children's book, one of the very first I can remember reading - which also marks my first memory of my lifelong fascination with wolves.
In Minnesota (or thereabouts) in the mid-20th century, a boy adopts an orphaned wolf cub after seeing its parents and littermates shot. Adventures ensue.
The prose style is bald and simplistic - deliberately dumbed down for children, I think, so it's a bit monotonous for adults to read. Even so, it's a remarkable book for its depth and insight. There are some heavy errors in wolf behaviour (for a start, wolves will never make good pets), but, for a book written in the 1960's, Ruff the Wolf shows astonishing sensitivity to wolf behaviour in general, and to the misunderstandings and conflicts of interest that beset wolves and humans alike - especially wolves and farmers.
Granted, Briscoe simplifies the issues (kid's book, remember) and glosses over some of the uglier aspects (the rancher's objections to wolves are rational, with no mention of the blind hatred that some people reserve for the wolf). But in the broad strokes, at least, he's right on the money. This was barely three years after Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf, a wild flight of fancy whose cutesy and self-serving myths have distorted public understanding of wolves ever since. If William Briscoe had taken Mowat's place, I can't imagine how much better understood the wolf would be today.
In Minnesota (or thereabouts) in the mid-20th century, a boy adopts an orphaned wolf cub after seeing its parents and littermates shot. Adventures ensue.
The prose style is bald and simplistic - deliberately dumbed down for children, I think, so it's a bit monotonous for adults to read. Even so, it's a remarkable book for its depth and insight. There are some heavy errors in wolf behaviour (for a start, wolves will never make good pets), but, for a book written in the 1960's, Ruff the Wolf shows astonishing sensitivity to wolf behaviour in general, and to the misunderstandings and conflicts of interest that beset wolves and humans alike - especially wolves and farmers.
Granted, Briscoe simplifies the issues (kid's book, remember) and glosses over some of the uglier aspects (the rancher's objections to wolves are rational, with no mention of the blind hatred that some people reserve for the wolf). But in the broad strokes, at least, he's right on the money. This was barely three years after Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf, a wild flight of fancy whose cutesy and self-serving myths have distorted public understanding of wolves ever since. If William Briscoe had taken Mowat's place, I can't imagine how much better understood the wolf would be today.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review