From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8–While the cover art is a turnoff, this is a well-plotted story for readers not ready for Annette Curtis Klause's
Blood and Chocolate (Dell, 1997). Forest ranger Garrett Brock finds four wolf cubs in the British Columbia wilderness and takes them home. When his wife checks on them in the middle of the night, she sees four human babies. These cubs can change themselves from human to wolf to werewolf. The Brocks raise them as their own, and the story picks up 15 years later, when the four are experiencing typical teen angst, with an added twist. One afternoon, they transform in the woods without realizing that a famous geneticist is taping them. Dr. Monk, a rather cardboard evil character with two assistants, traps Tora and makes plans to take her to a zoo for testing. The doctor is interested only in the wealth and fame this discovery will bring him. When he overcomes Brock's obstacles and gets all the necessary clearances he needs, Tora's brothers step in, with the help of one human peer whom they trust. They devise an ingenious plan that frees her and destroys the tapes, without taking any lives. The plot moves quickly enough to hold interest and may appeal to reluctant readers.
–Laurie von Mehren, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brecksville, OH Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
Finalists for the 2005 Aurora Award – Best Long-Form Work in English category.After a devastating forest fire, a ranger discovers a litter of wolf cubs. He and his wife soon learn that they are no ordinary wolves. They are both animal and human. Although the young ones try to fit into the human world, their true nature makes the challenges of being teenagers all the more difficult.
When one of the pack is kidnapped, the others must draw on both sides of their nature – human and wolf – to find the cunning, the strength, and the courage it takes to rescue her.
Edo van Belkom has created unlikely but compelling heroes in a book that is by turns funny, frightening, and always entertaining.
