Behind the Book: Old Wolf

Peo­ple often ask me for the ori­gins of a par­tic­u­lar book or sto­ry. In fact, the oth­er day I was read­ing to my wife a short sto­ry I had writ­ten. When I fin­ished my read­ing she told me she liked it and then asked, “How did you get the notion for that?” I had to admit I had no idea where it came from. That can’t be said of my lat­est book, Old Wolf, which has just been published.

We had a much-loved fam­i­ly dog, an Alaskan mala­mute, named McKin­ley. In fact, he’s the pri­ma­ry sub­ject of an ear­li­er book, The Good Dog. As will hap­pen, the dog grew old, almost reach­ing four­teen years. At that point he became over­whelmed with ill-health, pain, and he died, much mourned.

It was being a wit­ness to McKinley’s last months, his pain and suf­fer­ing, that is the gene­ses of Old Wolf. Keep in mind mala­mutes look like wolves.

The sto­ry is about an old wolf who has suf­fered a wound, even as he seeks to lead his pack to food dur­ing the ear­ly spring, the “Starv­ing time.”

Into the sto­ry is woven some­thing I’ve long been fas­ci­nat­ed by, the rela­tion­ship of wolves and ravens. Wolves are very intrigu­ing and ravens are quite remark­able crea­tures in their own right.

The oth­er main thread of the sto­ry is the boy, Casey, whose knowl­edge of death comes through video games. My youngest son played them a lot, and I was always stag­gered by his casu­al “killing,” of men, beasts, and mon­sters. But in video games while there is a lot of killing, there is no real death.

So here, in Old Wolf, is a wound­ed old wolf, a smart raven, and a boy who would like noth­ing more than to be a hunter and kill some­thing. And—for his 13^th birth­day, he has just received a bow and arrow set.

In Old Wolf, Boy, Wolf and Raven meet.

And by the way, they meet in the for­est that sur­rounds my home, high in the Rocky Moun­tains. My good friend, Bri­an Flo­ca (Calde­cott 2014), who did the illus­tra­tions (and the gor­geous cov­er) vis­it­ed us and was able to cap­ture much of my world.

Any­way, new book, Old Wolf. Hope you enjoy it.