Jean Craighead George's Julie of the Wolves

I recently completed an individual inquiry project on young adult adventure/survival tales. I compared them to coming-of-age stories and related the fact that pretty much all of the survivalist tales I have read in YA literature are indeed coming-of-age tales. The one common factor among all the books I read for the project, Far North, The Maze, Alabama Moon, The Hatchet, is all the lead characters were male. Julie of the Wolves bumped the trend, and it really is good to see the perspective of a young girl in a 'survivalist' type situation, where one is out in the wild with scarce resources, so that young girls reading texts like these have someone to relate to.

The wolf-pack that Miyax adapts with and learns to survive from is symbolic of how we learn from humans around us and adapt to what others do. Young people reading this in a classroom will begin to understand how to learn from others and gain acceptance, as Miyax gained acceptance into the pact and was able to stay alive because of her adaptability.

We again see a theme of rape, and how Julie deals with this in her flashback is important. Although it is not explicit, as this is a YA (or even children's) novel, the presence of the abuse welcomes an opportune time to teach about the emotional ramifications of rape and sexual abuse. Julie decided to run away to San Francisco rather than dealing with the issue up front and this lead her to further unhappiness. She was clearly naive in her belief that she could make it, but it shows the extreme lengths some are willing to go through to escape such a situation.

The book also opens up the opportunity to explore Inuit (or Eskimo, depending on your location) culture. This incredibly rich culture preceded the Anglo presence in America and is not often seen in YA texts. It is obviously present in history classrooms but that is primarily surface information. This takes the reader into the mindset and lifestyle of an Inuit. This could lead to interdisciplinary assessments, or the educator could teach a nonfiction piece on Inuit culture. Also, the coming-of-age tale could be compared to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian when comparing Native culture in an Inuit village and native culture in a village on a rez in the U.S. Also, this book could be taught alongside any of the texts I read for my individual inquiry project to explore the differences in experiences and themes of a novel focusing on a survivalist/coming-of-age tale between a young girl and a young boy.