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BAREE: The Story of a Wolf-Dog by James Oliver Curwood

BAREE: The Story of a Wolf-Dog

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Pub Date: Sept. 17th, 1990
ISBN: 1557041326
Publisher: Newmarket

This third book in Curwood's ""Nature Series"" (after Kazan and The Grizzly King, the latter reissued last year as The Bear to tie in with the movie) was originally published in 1917. It tells the tale of a magnificent black wolf-dog, son of Kazan and Gray Wolf, who must fend for himself growing up in northern Canada in the latter part of the 19th century. Baree's dramatic coming of age entails such key moments as letting out his first wolf howl; realizing that there are creatures more powerful than he in the wild; and having a pack of wolves turn on him. While perhaps not as vividly told as The Bear, the story nonetheless succeeds in Curwood's intention to ""tell of the lives of wild things which I know as they are actually lived. . .If we are to love animals so much that we do not want to kill them, we must know them as they actually live."" A sensitively written novel-about life in the wild and especially about how animals may perceive experiences (without being heavily anthropomorphic)--that's bound to find fans among animal lovers and animal-rights fans alike.