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WAPOOTIN by Jane & Paul Annixter

WAPOOTIN

By

Pub Date: Feb. 2nd, 1976
Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

The Annixters undoubtedly have a knack for getting us emotionally involved with their animal heroes and Wapootin, the moose calf, is particularly affecting as he wanders through his balmy Alaska valley in his first summer, grows confused and lonely when his mother abandons him and the other moose turn testy during rutting season, and develops into a magnificent young bull while surviving attacks from grizzlies and a hunter. For purists, Wapootin may well be too human; as much as one cheers his final victory--when he trees an unwary hunter and beats off a grizzly who stumbles on the scene--the notion that he is conciously ""avenging a lifetime of harassment and fear"" is a bit heavy. As in Sea Otter (1972) the liberal assignment of motivation may drive Wapootin over to the fiction shelf, but wherever he ends up he'll have a certain following.