CHAKKA

The captivating love story of a woman and her wolf, told with humor and great style by veterinarian Gravlin. Growing up the sole exception to her apartment building's ban against children, Gravlin made up for the absence of human playmates by befriending neighborhood beasts—alley cats that showed up each afternoon for snacks; starlings that allowed her to watch them feed their young in the hedges; and even a chipmunk that lived in the pocket of the young girl's bathrobe the year she was bedridden with rheumatic fever. Gravlin's love and empathy for animals remained for life, and as an adult she matter-of-factly took hundreds of wounded, lost, or orphaned creatures into her home in northern Michigan, brought wild animals to visit children in schools, and hosted a TV show about animals—all while raising a family. But by middle age, Gravlin still had not had the ultimate animal-lover's experience: She had never raised a wild wolf. She got her chance when she traveled to a wolf breeder in Iowa, met a feisty, dominant, and irresistibly goofy male pup, and named him Chakka. Wolf and woman fell in love instantly; their mutual affection soon led to the entire Gravlin family's initiation as members of Chakka's pack, to the transformation of their home into a wolf's den, and to many a winter's night in which the entire household—animal and human—howled gleefully at the moon in somewhat imperfect harmony. Warm and deeply felt, astonishingly rich in carefully observed detail, and destined to make animal lovers out of all its readers.