THE YOUNGEST TIMBERWOLF

In Perez’s middle-grade novel, a boy, reeling from the death of his father, stumbles across a band of talking wolves on a mission to save their tribe.

Charlie Garcia lives with his mother and older sister, Krissy, in Colorado. He’s still grieving the death of his father, and he’s frequently bullied at school over his Mexican American and Indigenous heritage, but he finds solace in the woods. He’s always been attuned to animals, but everything changes one day when he stumbles on a howling wolf wearing face paint. A cougar wearing a blue Union Army jacket attacks the wolf, but an initially hidden wolf pack fights off the attacker. In the confusion of the fight, Charlie bravely frees the trapped animal, and the pack, whose members can talk, immediately accepts him as a friend. The group—including Luca, Andes, Chavo, and an otter named Fennimore—explains that they’re known as the Timberwolves—a part of the Seyenne tribe being hunted down and killed by a Union Army group known as the Third Regiment. That group consists of Tom-Tom, the cougar; Jax, a viper; Last Breath, an anaconda; Demon, a Komodo dragon; and Ten Bears, a mammoth grizzly bear. They’re led by the fearsome Col. Shiverton, a hog who “seeks to remove the Seyenne and all tribal peoples from [Seyenne] lands.” Charlie and the Timberwolves roam the land, killing the members of the Third Regiment one by one as they search for other Seyenne survivors to help. This eventually results in a final showdown with the evil Col. Shiverton—a meeting during which Charlie faces the truth about the villain’s mission and must make a choice between “righteousness” or “riches.”

The book’s simple language and dialogue makes it an appropriate fit for middle-grade readers. As such, the violence that’s depicted throughout the story remains relatively mild, and even the death scenes are never overly graphic in their descriptions: “The wolf’s canines clasped as a vise onto the cougar’s vulnerable throat, making the cat struggle to breathe.” The third-person narrative perspective switches to first-person italicized sections at times, which can make for a jerky reading experience. Still, despite these intermittent stumbles, Perez manages to construct an adventure that’s both entertaining and educational. Readers are led through a straightforward morality tale that plays out exactly as one would expect, aside from the fact that the legends and traditions of the Seyenne people remain firmly at the novel’s forefront. When a Timberwolf explains to Charlie, for instance, that “the Great Spirit helps the good in ways we were not meant to understand,” Charlie wrestles with what this means in the context of his father’s death and his own roles within his family, his Indigenous nation, and society as a whole. Such explorations of broader themes go a long way toward deepening a simple story of fighting, talking animals, transforming the book into a thoughtful reflection on culture and self-acceptance.

An initially simple adventure story that encourages young readers to embrace their roots and face their grief.