Call Of The Wild Reluctant Reader
Posted by alli on 07-25-2008
When I was in sixth grade, we followed the Iditerod Race and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was so intrigued by how the dogs communicated with each other and how they worked as a team, each with an individual and important role but part of a very complicated hierarchy. I found the whole concept of them loving that grueling hard work fascinating. My teacher explained, "It's in their blood. They live to work. They're the happiest doing what they were born to do." I found that absolutely remarkable…but I don't think I really got it until I read Call of the Wild.
I confess, I never read it as a youngster. It's one of those books you see so often growing up that you think you've read it. You've heard the name Jack London so many times, and you know who he is and what he's about. You've seen the famous black and white, wind-blown portraits of him– you must have read his books, right?
So when I saw the paperback lying on a table at Borders the other day, I thought, "Here I am in Jack London's own San Francisco, literally blocks away from where he was born. Now's the time to finally read Call of the Wild." Seize the day.
And I did.
And I loved it.
The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking about how much fun it will be to read this with my son someday. I can't wait to talk with him about the great white north, the Gold Rush, sled dogs and mushing. I can't wait for him to hear about how beautiful the wild outdoors can be, how different and untouched it was long ago.
I can, however, wait for him to hear about dogs being ripped to shreads by each other and beaten bloody by their adult masters. Ugh. This was a particularly difficult thing to reconcile with the splendor of London's natural world, but I guess that's the point.
Call of the Wild is a book that transcends the outdoor action adventure genre and goes beyond just being a dog book. The main character, Buck, is a dog, but as the narrator of the story, he thinks, feels and behaves like a human, too. This dichotomy is played out for us as he struggles to embrace the essence of his "natural destiny": similar to the concept my teacher had once tried to explain. I love him because he also shows us the range of human nature too, equally brutal and beautiful.
London's great American classic made me think of what Jeff Savage had talked about at our conference last week. In a conversation about reluctant readers, he explained that he thought what boys really wanted was a lot of action, of course, but also honesty. 'Boys don't want things buttered-up or delivered in a watered-down way,' he said. They want the truth and they'll make their own judgements. If that's the case, Call of the Wild could be the original boy-book for the very first reluctant readers.
