The Land of Gray Wolf (Picture Puffins) - Softcover

Locker, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140557415 ISBN 13: 9780140557411

Publisher: Puffin, 1996

Synopsis

A young boy, Running Dear, and his small Native American tribe struggle to preserve their land while holding onto their traditional way of life in a turbulent modern world. Reprint.

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-5-- Locker's large-scale landscape paintings are well suited as background to a story of a young American continent inhabited by Indians and covered with splendid forests. Gray Wolf, chief of a small, unnamed tribe, steadfastly refuses to trade with the "Light Eyes," for he foresees that their methods of clearing land for farming will destroy the forests. Time brings war between his people and the settlers, Gray Wolf is killed, and his son Running Deer and the remnants of the tribe are forced onto a reservation. Eventually the descendants of Running Deer's people see the abandonment of the farms as the soil is used up. Beaver and raccoons, in the end, return to the old Indian hunting grounds. The Land of Gray Wolf carries the theme of living in harmony with nature and the environment, as well as a bit of the sad history of Native Americans. However, the plot lacks both drama and character development. It also lacks specificity as to the location of the land that has returned to its natural state. Locker's art is, as in his other books, his most effective mode of storytelling. His paintings of Indian life and easel-type landscapes of an America untouched by civilization may make the book worth the purchase. --Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Again, Locker has skillfully painted a series of landscapes in the manner of the Hudson River masters, then added some wooden figures plus a contrived story reflecting a social conscience: in this case, a lightly fictionalized account of white men stealing land from Indians who knew how to value it as they found it. Characters are introduced but not developed. The Indians go to a reservation, the interlopers build farms; then the book dwindles away with the partial return of the wilderness. Not actively bad, but lifeless and annoyingly pretentious. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0140557415
• ISBN 13: 9780140557411
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 32