Circus of the Wolves

Kael, a black timber wolf, is captured and performs for a circus, until he has the opportunity to escape

Grade 4-6-The story of "a black timber wolf with eyes like light," that is caught in a pit trap and trained to perform in a traveling circus. In the space of one year on the circuit from the eastern shore of Lake Superior through the midwest, the midsouth, and back, the animal is tamed by the calming voice of his soft-spoken trainer, a man who understands Kael's nature so well that he finally allows the wolf to return to the wild. The author has taken liberties with the subject matter by attempting to describe the feelings of the beast. He allows the wild creature to be trained quickly, although he acknowledges in a note that it would take much longer than the few months allotted in the narrative. Parker has painted one full-page watercolor illustration for each page of text, using pen and ink for outlining and detailing. Pages of text and illustration are framed in gray matting. This unusual short story offers food for thought and discussion, but its picture-book format and brevity may cause middle-grade readers searching for a good animal tale to pass it by.
Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kael, a black timber wolf, joins the Summerson-Appleby Circus "quite by accident" when he tumbles into a pit while hunting near the shore of Lake Superior. The wolf is trapped and caged and trained to perform with a group of domesticated wolves, but even his compassionate, painstaking handler cannot appease his yearning to be free. The trainer prompts Kael to howl, then Kael teaches the tame, dull-eyed wolves to sing from the center ring so that the audience is "drenched by sound . . . caught in the rush of mountain night music, a downhill rush that deepened and grew grander with each note." Eventually, another accident permits Kael to escape from his cage, with the reluctant blessings of the trainer ("Go. If I were you, I would do the same"). First-timer Bushnell's story is impassioned, but its premise is murky and its presentation is exaggerated. Parker contributes watercolors in the same sketchy style as those in Full Worm Moon (reviewed above); here, however, their luminosity is dimmed a bit by the book design, which sets full-page pictures facing page-length text blocks, and frames both in lifeless gray borders. Ages 6-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 6-8. Captured and taken from his native woods to join a traveling circus, Kael, a black timber wolf, slowly comes to trust the man who trains him to perform. The other wolves in the troupe, born and raised in captivity, have never howled until Kael begins to lead them in a nightly song, and their call of the wild becomes the most haunting part of each evening's performance. When the circus returns to the north woods near Kael's home, the man reluctantly offers the wolf his freedom, and Kael grabs his chance to be a creature of the forest once more. Told with grace and restraint and with sentimentality, this story will appeal to children who love animals. Bushnell presents the wolf neither as a figure of terror nor as an untamed pet, but as a creature with essential dignity. Told from Kael's point of view, the story has a quality of "otherness" heightened because the human characters have no names. Parker's expressive ink-and-watercolor artwork appears on full pages opposite the text. A little long for most preschoolers, this could be read aloud to primary-grade children; middle-graders may want to read it for themselves. Carolyn Phelan