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The Call of the Wild ()


San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 Novels of the West

In 6th grade, our teacher (Miss Bock) made us do diaramas for our book reports. One kid made a diarama of Call of the Wild that was amazing.  You looked through an aperture at the end of the shoebox and there were trees & the dog & snow drifts, the whole nine yards.  Meanwhile, for my book, Jonathon Livingston Seagull, I pasted blue paper in the bottom of a box & glued in a seagull.  I believe our grades reflected our respective efforts.

Reading Call of the Wild as an adult, one realizes that it's not actually written for kids.  Seemingly the tale of a dog in Alaska, it is actually an argument that our primitive natures lurk just beneath a thin veneer of civilization.

The fact that it can be read & enjoyed by youngsters is just a bonus.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (A)


Websites:

Jack London Links:
-Jack London's Ranch Album

Book-related and General Links:
    The Jack London Collection
    Jack London-his life and books

Other recommended books by Jack London:
    -The Sea-Wolf (1904)
    -White Fang

If you like The Call of the Wild, try:

Adams, Richard
    -Watership Down

Dickey, James
    -Deliverance

Farwell, Byron
    -Burton: A Biography of Sir Richard Francis Burton

Forbarth, Peter
    -The Last Hero

Harrison, William
    -Mountains of the Moon