Julie of the Wolves
First edition cover
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| Author | Jean Craighead George |
|---|---|
| Illustrator |
John Schoenherr Julek Heller (1976, UK) |
| Cover artist | Schoenherr |
| Country | United States |
| Series | Julie of the Wolves |
| Genre | Children's novel, survival fiction |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
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Publication date
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1972 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 170 pp (first ed.) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 578045 |
| LC Class | PZ7.G2933 Ju |
| Followed by | Julie |
Julie of the Wolves is a children's novel by Jean Craighead George, published by Harper in 1972 with illustrations by John Schoenherr. Set on the Alaska North Slope, it features a young Inuit girl experiencing the changes forced upon her culture from outside. George wrote two sequels that were originally illustrated by Wendell Minor: Julie (1994), which starts 10 minutes after the first book ends – Julie's Choice in the U.K. – and Julie's Wolf Pack (1997), which is told from the viewpoint of the wolves.
In 1971, Jean Craighead George and her son, Luke went on a trip to Barrow, Alaska, to do research on wolves for an article for Reader's Digest. As they flew into the Barrow airport, she and her son spotted a young Eskimo girl on the tundra, whom her son said "looked awfully little to be out there by herself". At the Barrow Arctic Research Lab, George observed scientists who were studying wolves and attempting to break their communication code. She allegedly witnessed a man bite the wolf on the top of its nose and communicate with it in soft whimpers, and "the incident stayed with George". George herself successfully communicated with a female wolf, and upon remembering the Eskimo girl walking by herself on the tundra that she and her son Luke saw on their way to Barrow, she decided to write a book about a young girl surviving on her own in the tundra by communicating with wolves. The character of Miyax/Julie is based on an Eskimo woman named Julia Sebevan, who taught George "about the old ways of the Eskimos".
In the process of writing the novel, George went through three drafts, and used numerous titles including "The Voice of the Wolf"; "Wolf! Wolf?"; "Wolf Girl"; "The Cry of the Wolf"; and "Wolf Song".
Readers and students communicated to George their desire to read more about Julie "several years ago", but George felt that she "did not know enough about the Eskimo culture". It was only after her son, Craig, moved to Alaska that George "felt ready" to write the sequel titled Julie.Julie's Wolf Pack was written only after George had learned more about the relationships of wolves in a pack.
The story has three parts: first her present situation (Amaroq, the Wolf), then a flashback (Miyax, the Girl), and finally a return to the present (Kapugen, the Hunter).
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