The Wolves Are Back
By Jean Craighead George
Illustrated by Wendell Minor
Dutton Children’s Books, 2008
ISBN#978-0-525-47947-5
Nonfiction picture book
The Wolves Are Back relates in lyrical narrative the reasons why wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park and shows the positive impact they made on the food web in the park following their reintroduction. Author Jean Craighead George, known for Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain, allows the relationships of the living organisms in the story to evolve naturally to let readers discern the conclusion-the wolves helped restore the natural balance. Illustrator Wendell Minor spent time with Ms George in Yellowstone before painting the lush, accurate pictures depicting the plants and animals in the park.
The wolf pup pricked up his ears, pattered out of the den, and followed his father down the slope.
Activity 1
Read the book a second time. This time, stop and list the plants and animals mentioned in the book. Point out the relationships among the various living organisms. Create simple food chains from this list.
Activity 2
Review the vocabulary words. Then use the organisms listed from Activity 1 to create a food web. Use arrows to show the energy flow from the producers to the consumers. Add the flow back to the decomposers.
Terms and explanations
Food chain-the path of energy transfer from producers through the consumers.
Producers-organisms that use the sun’s energy to make energy in the form of food; plants, algae, and some bacteria.
Consumers-organisms who consume plants or other organism to get energy.
First level-producers who use the sun’s energy to make food.
Second energy level-herbivores who eat plants
Third energy level-carnivores who eat herbivores (meat); including top level consumers who eat other carnivores or
–omnivores who eat both plants and meat.
Decomposers-bacteria and fungi who consume dead and decaying animals and wastes for their energy; they break down the dead matter, releasing wastes of their own that return nutrients back to the environment.
This is an article about the return of the wolves to Yellowstone.
A good follow up to read aloud is Julie of the Wolves.
Trout Are Made of Trees, by April Pulley Sayre, is a good look at a food chain.
National Science Standard: life cycles of organisms, organisms and environment
Jean Craighead George is one of my favorite authors. Her books are the first thing I turn to when I want to learn about a new animal or habitat. The suggestions you make for helping children to search out and learn new words from her book will help them to learn more about wolves while increasing their vocabulary.
She is one of my favorites, too. I was interested in science early on, and the pleasure I got from reading her books reflected that. I’m glad the suggestions will help.
Hi Shirley, I’m visiting from your kidlitosphere introduction.
I really like the way you’ve linked to follow-up books and articles, and provided activities. I try to do the same on my blog with fiction books for kids. In my opinion, it adds value to a review and makes it more accessible to parents.
Your blog also is crisp and clean and easy to read. Good stuff!
Thank you! I checked out the Book Chook and enjoyed it. I’ll add it to my reader. As a former teacher, I like suggesting activities that fit with the book. I hope it helps make science a little less mysterious.
I think it does. I am not sure why science has retained such an air of mystery. I always found my classes loved science in primary school, but enjoyment seemed to drop off for many at high school. I suspect because there was such pressure on teachers to cover so much territory rather than cover a more limited amount really well.
Jean and I are very pleased that you have listed our book, “The Wolves Are Back”.
“The Buffalo Are Back” will be published next year (2010), followed by “The Eagles Are Back”
in 2011.
Live Oak Media has just released the audio CD of “Wolves” narrated by Wendell Minor
Also, please watch for Jean’s next book, “The Last Polar Bear” to be published by HarperCollins in the fall of this year (2009).
We remain committed to bringing science and nature to the next generation.
Thank you, Wendell. I’ve always loved Jean Craighead George’s books, and your art in this one is exquisite. I did a bit of wolf and coyote calling with a college professor years ago. He was researching the disappearance of the genetically pure red wolf around Padre Island and the hybrids that were then living there.