The Wolves of Yellowstone

 Aha! I’ve found a stash of wolf books in my basket. I’m sharing two of them today, both about wolves reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park. They are great stories to share during Earth Week.

theme: environment, wolves, animal behavior

The Unlikely Hero: The Story of Wolf 8 (A Young Readers' Edition) 

by Rick McIntyre and David A. Poulsen; illus. by John Potter

120 pages; ages 9-12

Greystone Kids, 2024

This is the first book in the Chronicles of the Yellowstone Wolves series and is based on Rick McIntyre’s research and sightings of Wolf 8 when he worked for the national park. Written as close to a wolf’s perspective as possible, this story tells how Wolf 8 struggled as a pup after his family was captured from the wild and introduced to their new home: Yellowstone. It is by turns an adventure tale and a tale of scientific discovery. And while no one can truly know what a wolf thinks, after 44 years of wolf-observation Rick might just come close enough.

Readers follow Wolf 8 as he grows, plays – and fights – with his brothers, and eventually moves away to a new family. We watch him as a father teaching his own pups to hunt, and defending his new pack against other wolves as well as buffalo and grizzlies. The book is filled with a wealth of sound scientific information on wolf behavior and sidebars through which Rick explains how he and other wildlife scientists come to understand the wolves.

If you like stories about underdogs, this one’s for you! 

The Wolves of Yellowstone: A Rewilding Story 

by Catherine Barr; illus. by Jenni Desmond

48 pages; ages 5-8 (and older)

‎Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2022

Yellowstone National Park is home to nearly 2,000 different kinds of wildlife. Birds, fish, elk, bison. Lynx, mountain lions, bears, coyotes. And wolves – at least now there are wolves. Not too long ago it was a place without wolves. Hunters shot wolves if they chased cattle. The US government didn’t interfere with the wolf hunts, and in 1926 the last wolf was killed.

And then things got out of hand. Without wolves, the elk population grew. And grew. And grew. Their grazing changed the habitat, and other animals left. In 1995 Yellowstone made the decision to reintroduce wolves to the park. First, though, they had to trap the wolves. Then they penned them in enclosures so the wolves wouldn’t try to return to their Canadian homes. Finally, after 10 weeks or so, they released the wolves into the wildest parts of the national park.

With the return of the wolves, something started to happen. The elk population declined, and other animals increased their presence in the park. As the number of elk went down, grass had a chance to grow, and trees reappeared along riverbanks. Trees provided habitat for songbirds. Reintroducing wolves created a chain of positive impacts on the ecosystem.

Here’s what I like about this book: The endpapers. The front one, filled with elk tracks; the back one with wolf tracks and hummocks of grasses. I love the illustrations and the section on “how nature works” and there’s a lot of information about wolf life and behavior in this book. If I could change one thing it would be to make the text larger and, on the dark pages, give it more contrast to make it easier to read.

Beyond the Books:

Read: Learn all about the wolves at this Yellowstone National Park page

Watch: 60-Minutes story on the Yellowstone wolves and a PBS (short) video on wolves

Observe: Visit a zoo (or Yellowstone National Park) where you can watch wolves. The Yellowstone wolves are gray wolves, but some zoos have red wolves. Both are interesting to watch.

Draw a picture of a wolf. Compare it to a dog you know … what similarities do you notice? What differences?

Today we’re joining Perfect Picture Book Friday. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. 

On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copies provided by the publishers.