Study Guide for 'Wolf Journal, A Novel'

This study guide is the academic companion to Brian Connolly's "Wolf Journal." Set in the Allegheny Mountains of northern Pennsylvania, farm boy Jimmy Warren finds wolf tracks in the snow - even though no wolves have been in these woods for a hundred years. The tracks lead him deeper into his passion for nature guided by Hawk, an old Susquehannock storyteller. Along the way, Jimmy falls in love with the beautiful Sherry Woolman who shares his love of the wild. As a school project, Jimmy keeps a journal on wolves. In order to protect the wolf he discovered, Jimmy writes about him as if he is fiction. The Tanner brothers, a derelict pair of would-be bounty hunters, threaten to destroy the perfect balance of nature that Jimmy has found. "Wolf Journal" is a journey into the natural world where intricate details, like the imprint of a wing in snow, tell a larger story - one of endangered species, an endangered planet, and the human spirit that strives to understand and protect.

Brian A. Connolly received a B.S. in Education from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania where he majored in English. As a graduating senior, he received the first annual Finnegan Award for Poetry. His graduate work was completed at the State University of New York at Oswego and Cortland, Elmira College and Umass at North Adams. In addition to being a Project Adventure teacher, Mr. Connolly taught creative writing in New York State public schools for twenty-eight years.

He then moved to Bend, Oregon to write full time. He has a son and daughter, Nathan and Heather. His children's book "Bradley's Christmas Adventure," illustrated by Gina Diamanti, was published in 1990. His short stories and poems have appeared in many literary magazines from Maine to Washington.

As an avid wolf watcher, he spends three months each summer and one month during the winter helping field biologists spot wolves and report wolf behavior in Yellowstone National Park. It was his observations of the Druid Peak Pack, the Slough Creek Pack, the Agates, the Molly Pack, the former Geode Pack and the Leopold Pack that inspired this novel. Mr. Connolly grew up in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania, the setting for Wolf Journal.