WOLF CLUB

Thirteen-year-old Okan Thibault is an Ojibwe boy on a quest to find a mysterious white wolf.

His grandmother’s medicine cards, combined with a vision, urge Okan to protect a white wolf sighted in the Sawtooth Mountains outside their Minnesota town. Okan isn’t sure that he’s the right choice for the quest, since he walks with a limp and the companions his cards choose for him are questionable. There’s Skunk, a girl with a Native mother and white father; she smells bad and is trying to defuse the cruel moniker by embracing it. And then there’s school bully Moose, a rich kid who steals Okan’s lunch money. All three end up in detention together and form the Wolf Club. With nothing more than the medicine cards and their personal hopes of what it would mean to find the wolf, they set out on an adventure that leads them to the very heart of the woods and their greatest desires. Much of Okan’s inner dialogue is thoughtful (if at times heavily expository), providing context for Indigenous creation stories, historical conflicts, and Anishinaabemowin vocabulary, but the contemporary slang feels awkward and forced. Okan makes frequent proclamations about “us Native Americans” that can come across as lacking in nuance and feeding into outdated tropes. The story includes thoughtful social commentary about protest, preservation, and gentrification. The main characters, who are coming to terms with deep trauma, enjoy an emotional and happy conclusion.

A sincere, if uneven, exploration of healing and connection.