Never Cry Wolf


I read the book Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat. It was published by Hachette Book Group USA in 1963. Mowat wrote this memoir about his experiences of wolf studies and experiments. Never Cry Wolf is a detailed book because it shows how passionate Mowat is about understanding wolves’ habitat and life.

This book is about Mowat going out to the middle of the woods trying to find out what happened to all the caribou by researching wolfs and caribous actions. The first night when Mowat was dropped out in the forest by a plane he heard wolves howling and thought a pack of wolves was coming toward him. Then he found that it was a man named Mike from the Eskimo tribe with his husky team; he wanted to check things out because he never saw a plane land so far into the forest. From then on they became very good friends.

After a few days of staying at Mike’s and watching for wolves, he heard some howls but only for a few minutes. The next day Mowat went searching and found a cave with one female wolf, two males and several pups. Mowat could not get close enough to the wolf den without getting hurt, so he set up his tent with tools far away behind a pile of rocks. He did this to observe the wolves’ day to day activities. After a few days Mowat learned the schedule of the wolves and what they did.
While Mowat stayed at Mike’s house, he did some experiments there. One thing he did while staying there was used two of Mike’s huskies for experimenting. Mowat was seeing how eating mice instead of caribou would affect the huskies strength. He was doing this because he saw wolves capturing smaller mammals, such as mice and wanted to know why this was happening. Mowat found out that this was because of a scarce amount of caribou and eating several mice was not affecting their strength at all.
Mowat then met one of Mike’s relatives, a teenage boy, named Ootek who was very helpful. This was because Ootek could understand the wolves’ howls and knew what they meant. He knew what the howls meant because his father once left him in a cave with a wolf family for a week.

First I will tell you that the author of this book explains parts of the book somewhat dull like where Mowat follows wolf prints but it has no action or heart beating but he will make up for it in the rest of the book such as his experiments. My opinion of this book is it is a very informational book even if it is information you will never need or use it is still interesting. This book is also a good book for teenagers who like wolfs or animal life. Finally it is fun to see how people live in the woods and snow.
When I saw this book, I didn’t want to read it at all, but like people say you can’t judge a book by its cover. After a couple pages, you will be pulled in just like I was. I also assure you that if you read this book, you will not be let down.