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Animal Heroes

by Ernest Thompson Seton

Fair warning: there are a lot of SPOILERS in this post. I tell what happens because I think many readers would like to know ahead of time that A LOT OF ANIMALS DIE in these tales. Akin to Jack London\’s writings, there\’s plenty of fighting and mistreatment. Seton claims that his animal stories are based on fact, however I assume they are embellished with detail. Not quite sure how all the animal protagonists qualify as \’heroes\’ yet they are compelling stories. I actually started reading this one right after The Triumph of Seeds, but then between each story in this volume, I picked up another book as follows:

\”The Slum Cat\”- life of an alley cat, with remarkably pretty markings. At first the story is just about the cat\’s life, how it grows up, daily search for food, avoiding bigger meaner cats, etc. Then the cat starts hanging around what sounds like a disreputable shop that sells pet birds. The seller comes up with an idea to fob off the alley cat as a rare pedigreed import at a local fancy cat show. Everyone is taken in, and the cat gets sold to a wealthy family, who do some remarkable mental gymnastics to excuse every ill-mannered and anti-social behavior the cat exhibits in their nice home. The cat is well-fed and pampered but hates it all and longs to return to its alley. Eventually it escapes and makes its way back home. Story doesn\’t quite end there, though! After this one I read Maverick Cats.

\”Arnaux\” is about a homing pigeon. The bird lives in a loft that appears to have multiple owners- and the story describes how the pigeons are kept and flown. Different from nowadays (which I only know from reading a general nonfiction book on pigeons). The birds must have excellent navigational skills, endurance and smarts, to make it home again. There\’s one bit where a pigeon takes a message to get help for a ship stranded at sea, but most of it is about regular homing pigeon races. One bird is less attractive and smaller than the rest, but the fastest racer in the loft. In part of the story this bird gets captured and shut into a different loft on his way home- by a fancier who doesn\’t intend to actually steal him, but to breed him and then let him go again. He ends up staying in the strange loft for years before escaping and heading straight on home again. But then the pigeon meets a sudden and cruel end. I\’m sure Seton just means to show how life is not always kind and fair, but still, you might not want to read this story to a sensitive child. Following this one I read A Pigeon and a Boy.

\”Badlands Billy: the Wolf That Won\” is about a large wolf that preys on cattle so hunters are always after him. The first part of the story tells how he grows up as a pup, looses his mother and is raised by another wolf, his foster-siblings die from poisoning so then he gets all the milk and grows larger than most. Looses his foster mother at the hand of man as well but is old enough to fend for himself. Soon gains the attention of men from killing cattle- the second half of the story is mostly from human viewpoint, how they hunt down the wolf with dog packs. In this one the wolf is victor, but still it\’s unsettling to read how all the dogs are killed by the wolf (the author warns you ahead of time this is coming, in case you want to stop reading!) Not one of my favorites. After this one I read Flight of the White Wolf.

\”The Boy and the Lynx\”- there\’s a boy visiting some friends (a young man and his two sisters) who live in a small cabin in northern Canada. Out in the middle of the forest. Kid has gone there to recuperate his health, and is having a fine time until they all get ill. (The description of the fever and chills they suffered reminded me instantly of a scene in Little House on the Prairie). Completely debilitated by the illness, they\’re all mostly bedridden and start to run out of food. At the same time there\’s a lynx living nearby, has a den with two kittens. The lynx is near starving because rabbit population has crashed. Lynx starts coming to the cabin to steal chickens, and then gets bolder. The boy has seen the lynx a few times in the forest, but now weak and sick he has a hard time recognizing the fierce animal that comes into the cabin to eat the food off their table at night. There\’s a final confrontation, and even though it escapes alive, the lynx gets the worst of it in the end. The final scene in this story is very grim, and probably also very realistic. I couldn\’t stop picturing it. I don\’t have a book on my shelf specifically about lynx or even a bobcat, so next I read Wild Cats.

\”Little Warhorse\”- When I first glanced through the table of contents, thought this was about a wild horse. Nope, it\’s a jackrabbit. One larger, faster, smarter than all the rest. The rabbit has his speed and hiding places and quick maneuvers to evade dogs and coyotes that chase it. But then humans hold a rabbit drive. The whole town gathers to beat the shrubbery and drive all the wild rabbits into a kind of corral. Hundreds are simply slaughtered, but those that catch people\’s eye are set aside and taken to use in greyhound coursing. Which usually means the dogs kill the rabbits, while people on the sidelines are betting on the dogs. Our jackrabbit excels here, too- outrunning the dogs time and time again, gaining admiration from the crowd who dub him Warhorse. The rabbit man (whose job is to take care of jackrabbits that haven\’t been used yet) argues that Warhorse has earned his freedom. The dog people all want to pit their greyhounds against him, so they agree on a set number of matches after which if the jackrabbit is still alive, it can be set free. The rabbit gets holes punched in his ears to mark each race won. But then they argue for more races, because other people are now eager to pit their dogs against this rabbit too. Rabbit man gets into a fight over it. So in this one the main animal character survives in the end, but a ton of his fellow rabbits died for sport. The Adventures of Peter Cottontail was my next read.

\”Snap: the Story of a Bull-Terrier\”- man owns a fierce little bull-terrier dog that is vicious to everyone. It took him a week to earn the dog\’s trust. He\’s the only one who can handle it safely, and the dog is always super eager to fight any other dog it meets. Man visits a cattle ranch on business and goes along on some wolf hunts; the ranchers are no longer allowed to poison wolves so track them down to mitigate livestock losses, but their dogs won\’t actually grapple with the wolf. They have foxhounds to trail the scent, greyhounds to chase, and great danes and wolfhounds to close in the fight- these dogs working together can get coyotes but not the wolf. So the main character brings his bull-terrier along. It is slower than the other dogs (having shorter legs) but once upon the wolf, dives into the fight without hesitation. The men are glad to finally kill a wolf, and admire the bull-terrier\’s bravery, but the dog takes serious injuries. Sorry to say this is another one where the animal dies. I read a juvenile fiction book called Grip: a Dog Story next and that was a very fit pairing.

\”The Winnipeg Wolf\” is about a wolf that\’s taken from its den when its mother and littermates are all killed for bounty. The young wolf is chained up outside a saloon where people amuse themselves by setting their dogs on him and poking him with sticks. A bratty child flees his irate father into the wolf\’s shelter, and instead of attacking the animal defends him. Soon the boy and the wolf are stout companions, even though the wolf is always tied up. Eventually it gets free, is harrassed by people and chased by dogs, but never caught again. When the kid gets sick and dies from a fever, the lonely wolf hangs around town, never leaving into the wilderness. It continues to hate men and dogs but never will harm children. However the townsmen enjoy pitting their dogs against the wolf, over and over until there\’s a final fight with a whole scrum of dogs against the one wolf. Guess how it ends. After this one I read The Dog with Yellow Eyes.

\”Legend of the White Reindeer\”- I don\’t quite know what to say about this one. It\’s set in Norway, about a white reindeer which is born in a herd that is annually inspected by men to pick animals out for training to pull sleds. The white reindeer is big and strong (it fought off a wolverine as a yearling, with the help of its mother), so of course attracts attention. It is taken into captivity and trained, but retains its fierceness and will turn on any man that mistreats it. A lot of this story was a jumble to me though- there were so many unfamiliar place names and foreign terms I had trouble following it. At one point there are races, of reindeer and horses respectively, and the white reindeer does so well it is put in a race against the fastest horse. Then there\’s a lot of doings among men it seems there was a misunderstanding and someone was going to turn traitor- the white reindeer was harnessed to take him carrying a message but instead of going where he was supposed to the reindeer ran off into the wilderness up a steep trail he\’d often followed as a young free animal, and they were both lost in a storm, never heard of again. Which was beneficial to the country. I didn\’t get it.

Well, in spite of all the dismal treatment animals get in these stories, and the brutal fights, nevertheless I found them engaging and lively, with wonderful descriptions. Seton just is a darn good storyteller. Except for the last about the reindeer, they all stuck in my head vividly. Really like the illustrations, too. I think my favorite was probably \”Slum Cat.\”

Rating: 3/5 362 pages, 1901

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, Nature, Short Stories

2017 Stats

Total books read- 112

Fiction- 46
Non-fiction- 50

fiction breakdown
YA- 20
Historical- 5
Fantasy- 14
J Fic- 12
Picture books- 2
Animals- 14
Classics- 1
Poetry- 3

non-fiction breakdown
Art- 7
Gardening- 3
J Non-fic- 1
Memoirs- 9
Nature- 12
Animals- 34
Other- 3

other formats
Short stories- 4
Graphic novels- 27

e-books- 6

sources
Owned- 82
Library- 40
Review copies- 3
Borrowed from a friend- 1

re-reads- 1
abandoned books- 11

It looks like I read more books this year than usual, but it doesn\’t feel that way. The difference, I think, is that I read two entire series of graphic novels, so that added up. My numbers are (as usual) somewhat off- the fiction/non counts don\’t add up to the total (but the owned/borrowed count nearly does)- I tried once again to keep a tally sheet and slacked off partway through the year. But you get a rough idea. Looks like I read a lot more of my own books this year, although I went to the library regularly. Far more than two pictures books, but I only note the few I mentioned here on the blog.

Where did I go in the pages? Aregentina, Italy, Germany, the Cameroons, Russia, the Soviet Union, Poland, the Amazon River, several South Sea Islands, Japan, the Arctic, France, Tahiti and Kenya. And lots of pretend places, too.

Favorites: to my surprise, I only gave a top five-star rating to one book this past year: Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest by Julie Zickefoose. Among the great books, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver was one of my favorite fiction reads. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan deserves note- a painful, sometimes disturbing story of healing, one I won\’t easily forget. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben- wow, I learned so much about plant life, specifically in forests. Two Little Savages by Ernest Thompson Seton is dated, but a very good story about kids, stuffed with appreciation of nature. Aquaria Fish by Frank Lee Tappan has got to be one of the oldest books I read this year- written in the very beginning of the fishkeeping hobby- that was pretty interesting. The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham is a classic I\’m glad I finally got around to. And I enjoyed two graphic novels so much- both about an adopted child, but otherwise very different- that I read each series in its entirety: Yotsuba! beginning with this and Bunny Drop here (I had issues with the latter). One Trick Pony was another very fun graphic novel.

How was your reading year?

Bannertail

the Story of a Gray Squirrel
by Ernest Thompson Seton

This is, of course, about a squirrel\’s life. Early parts of it really rushed through some of the story. The squirrel is orphaned at a young age and kept by a boy who puts it to nurse with his cat\’s kittens. Then the barn burns down and the people suddenly move away- at least, it felt very sudden- the chapter about the fire and the people deserting the farm was all of one page. I was curious to read more about the squirrel living with its adoptive feline mother, but instead the story moves on and mostly tells how it lives in the forest- taking some time to adjust to the new situation, learn food sources and strategies, but for the most part having an edge over its competitors because after being cared for in captivity it was larger and healthier than the ordinary wild squirrels.

The narrative got intriguing when, as an adult raising young with its mate, this squirrel protagonist Bannertail fell into sinful living and had to learn from his mistakes or die. Yes, it became a moralistic story. The squirrel discovered intoxicating mushrooms in the forest and became addicted. It suffered for a time going back again and again for the mushrooms, acting wildly aggressive to common enemies while under the influence, being sick the next morning and estranging his family. Eventually the effects of the mushrooms almost killed it, and then it learned to avoid them and taught its young likewise.

There\’s also a very dramatic scene where the entire squirrel family battles a snake. Only one of the young squirrels doesn\’t make it to adulthood (earlier in the book, not from the snake), and in the end Bannertail is triumphant over all his difficulties, living the life wild and free high up in the treetops with his mate.

The feature illustrations are lovely in detail, and the more frequent marginal drawings very amusing and comedic. Enjoyed it on my e-reader.

Rating: 3/5 260 pages, 1922

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Current Reads

Two Little Savages

by Ernest Thompson Seton

Yan is an unhappy boy at home. He longs to be in the woods. He\’s all about nature- eager to sketch animals, lingering to stare in front of a taxidermist\’s shop, making himself a hideout in a thicket, wanting to learn all about local wildlife and plants. But those around him dismiss his interests; he is supposed to stick to his schoolwork and help with chores. However after struggling with a long illness, his parents send him to live with some relatives on a farm, in hopes of improving his health. He is very surprised and pleased to discover that his cousin is also \’keen on woodscraft\’. The boys have very different temperaments and skill sets, but become friends through their common interest. They play in the woods any chance they get, and eventually gain permission from their parents to spend a few weeks camping out.

With the help of an old trapper who befriends them, the boys make a tipi and set up a proper camp. This trapper had once lived with a native american tribe, so the boys pester him to teach them all he knows about \’being Injun\’. And he does. They learn how to make arrows, start a fire with sticks, track game and all sorts of small details like how to make smoke draw properly out of the tipi, how to skin an animal, tan hides, stuff a bird, make moccasins, set a live animal trap etc…. They have a strict code of conduct among themselves- predators and animals considered pests are fair game, but killing things like songbirds is forbidden. However sometimes they get carried away with their sport and cut down trees to try and capture squirrels, for example. They make up all sorts of games to compete and improve their skills- really their marksmanship with bows and arrows are laughable at first. The detailed game of taking turns hiding and finding a dummy deer they made out of burlap and straw was delightful. By the end of the story they have befriended several other boys and even brought their disinterested parents into the camp to admire their accomplishments.

Aside from all the details about making a temporary living in the forest, the book is a good story about a bunch of kids, just being kids. They have their moments- staunch camaraderie, teasing and heated quarrels by turns. I really appreciated that each kid had a very distinct character. There is a sharp contrast between Yan and his brothers earlier in the story, too. The characters are drawn so nicely I wonder if Seton wrote them after people he really knew (or himself as a child?). It is also a great picture of what life was like for people in rural, relatively poor areas over a hundred years ago. Yan\’s family is not well off by any means, but he finds there is another level of poverty altogether when he visits an \’old witch\’ who lives in by herself in the woods. He admires this woman for her knowledge of herbs, but when he asks her for information finds that a lot of her lore is mixed with superstition, and when she invites him to stay for dinner he is horrified at the blatant lack of hygiene when she prepares food. The written vernacular can be a puzzle- it was amusing to read it out loud when sometimes I couldn\’t figure out in my head what people were saying. Especially the poor folks with their heavier slang and rough talk.

There are also ghost stories, a distracted coon hunt, and a bit of mystery to solve that exonerates a man who had for years been shunned by the community, righting a long-standing wrong. And so much more, but I\’ve got to stop writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It\’s not as long as the page count might make it seem- the print is fairly large and there are tons of drawings- bird tracks, animal prints, diagrams showing how things are made or built, profiles of ducks, humorous sketches and full-page illustrations. Incidentally, Seton\’s drawings of ducks showing how the species could be identified by characteristic markings seen from afar inspired the first bird field guide by Roger Tory Peterson.

Rating: 4/5 552 pages, 1903

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, Juvenile Fic, Nature

The Biography of a Grizzly

by Ernest Thompson Seton

Note: there are SPOILERS in this post.

The story of a grizzly bear, different from Monarch the Big Bear of Tallac. The opening scene shows the bear cub gamboling charmingly with his siblings, the mother bear nearby. In the next chapter the mother bear is shot by a man, and only one cub- later named Wahb- survives. He is just old enough to make it on his own, but missing some crucial instructions he would have received from his mother, goes through a lot of struggles in his first year. Which ends up making him a sullen loner. Several run-ins with mankind leave him with a permanent limp and a deep fear and hatred of humans. The story shows how the bear holds his territory and drives out other, smaller bears. He even manages to drive men from his range- terrorizing them at homestead claims until his name becomes known and folks simply avoid the area. The bear is pretty smart- when first caught in a trap he accidentally treads on the spring that releases it; remembering this is later able to free himself from other traps. Further on in the story he finds a hot spring and discovers that soaking in the pool relieves the pain of his old injuries and he visits the pool many times for this purpose. In another part of the book the bear makes Yellowstone (then a very new park) part of his summer haunts, and there is even brief mention of the sick cub that fed on trash outside a lodge there (told in greater detail here).

For once, the main animal character in the story meets a peaceful end. The final chapters of the book was actually my favorite part. It describes how a younger bear seeking its own territory comes onto Wahb\’s land. This bear can tell that Wahb would be a formidable enemy, so it sneaks around for quite some time. Then it discovers a means to trick Wahb into thinking it is actually a larger bear. When the resident grizzly finds these marks, the apprehension of meeting the younger bear worries and wears on him. It was a really interesting description of the psychological conflict the two rival bears could have, one gradually pushing the other out even though they never had a direct encounter. In the end, Wahb goes into a gully where noxious gas seeping out of the ground makes him fall asleep, never to wake again. This is an actual place and I bet the description of dead bears found there gave Seton material for his story- he based most of his writings on observations or accounts of real wildlife.

My book is a 1914 edition, the story was first published in 1900. It seems to have been reprinted with several different titles- the image I show here is a newer edition which includes reference materials and historical information about the area Wahb lived in. I\’ve also seen an older edition titled King of the Grizzlies which I think is the same story.

Rating: 4/5 167 pages, 1900

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Fiction, Current Reads

The Trail of the Sandhill Stag

by Ernest Thompson Seton

Story about a young man who tracks a deer through the woods. Blacktail are scarce in the area (at least in the beginning of the tale) so he is excited to finally find some deer and follow their trail. Then he hears of a famously large buck and follows this particular deer each season, for many years in a row. Gradually the boy becomes just as much interested in the wildlife and scenery around him as the pursuit of the stag, so he doesn\’t mind staying in the woods overnight, even when his friends quit the scene and go home disgruntled and cold. He is keenly observant and learns how to read the woods; in one season takes up with a native Cree hunter who teaches him some different skills. At first he rarely catches a glimpse of the buck, finally gets close enough but looses his nerve and misses the shot. He follows the deer for several more years, determined to catch up to it again. When in the end he becomes skilled enough at reading the deer\’s trail and behavior to bring it to a standstill, face-to-face, he finds that his temperament towards the animal has changed, and of course cannot bring himself to kill it. Instead he admires its vitality and beauty, and lets it go to live out its life.

I don\’t think I\’m spoiling it by telling the end, I guessed early on what the outcome would be. It\’s a tidy moral. There\’s a point during the early years when one of his friends shoots a doe and the main character has serious misgivings at witnessing the death. For most of the time after he hunted alone and spent most of it appreciating nature.

Rating: 3/5 93 pages, 1899

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Current Reads

Wild Animals at Home

by Ernest Thompson Seton

This book should really be titled Wild Animals of Yellowstone Park, because that\’s exactly what it is. One by one, Seton tells about the different mammals that live in Yellowstone. At the back he gives a list of all the known mammals in Yellowstone, and it turns out he only left a few out of his descriptions: raccoon, shrew, flying squirrel, wolverine, vole, weasel- because he did not personally encounter them. Unfortunately, his descriptions of the wildlife leave something to be desired. He wrote them at a time when not much was actually known about the animals\’ habits, so for many it\’s just a brief page telling where the animal is found, what it eats, that\’s about it. Now and then he has a story to share- Steon is much more in his element (or at least more fun to read) when he\’s telling a story. He has a lot to say about skunks because he used to keep them as pets, and a lot to say about bears because they hung out around hotels and garbage dumps in the park. He frequently mentions sneaking up close on animals to capture photographs of them, then proudly shows said photos in the pages- but they are very dated, unfocused, grainy and overall just amusingly poor in quality. His drawings and sketches weren\’t quite up to par what I recall from other books either- a lot of them are very humorous and cartoony in style, but I like his detailed, realistic artwork better.

Well, so the text about animals is mostly brief descriptions with some secondhand observations, popular lore of the time and now and then a personal story Seton has to tell. Two segments were very familiar to me- the bears hanging out around the dump and the silly dog teased by coyotes- both are related in far more detail in Lives of the Hunted. There is one chapter in the book however, which is the entire reason I am keeping it on my shelf. It\’s about badgers. And while speaking of badgers, Seton tells of a boy in a prairie town near Winnipeg who has a natural affinity with animals, gets lost in a storm, takes shelter in a badger den and is befriended by the badger, who had just lost her mate and young to a trapper. The boy lives with the badger for two weeks before he is found and brought back home. I instantly recognized this story: it\’s Incident at Hawk\’s Hill! The names are all different, Seton says it was at Bird\’s Hill, but I\’m sure when Eckert novelized the story he changed names for privacy. All the more this makes me think the badger story really was based on truth.

Rating: 3/5 226 pages, 1913

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads

Lobo, Rag and Vixen

by Ernest Thompson Seton

I thought this book was awfully familiar when I started reading it on my kindle on the plane; it wasn\’t until halfway through that I realized I had read it before in a different collection. It contains four stories selected from Wild Animals I Have Known. So it was an unexpected re-read; and I think I actually enjoyed it more the second time around.

The first story is about the wolf leader of a pack that preys on cattle, and all the ranchers\’ attempts to shoot or poison him. The wolf is finally brought down when they manage to kill a female from the pack and Lobo comes looking for his dead mate. The second story is about the lives of a grouse family, how the mother raises her young and the adventures of one grouse cock when it grows up. I was piqued by an apparent error: the story recounts how one by one young partridges are lost, only a few of the original twelve survive into adulthood. But after telling how the first three are lost, the number of chicks is suddenly seven. I kept thinking- wait, did I miss something? what happened to the other two? O well. A similar survival story is presented in Rags, about a young rabbit and how its mother teaches survival skills, the many ways to evade enemies. The final story is about a fox family, how the parents raise the young foxes until the male fox is shot for killing chickens. Then the den is discovered and most of the cubs killed; the last cub is chained in the farmyard where the mother brings it food and tries in vain to free it. The final, sad scene shows the mother fox killing her cub when she cannot release it from the chain- better it die than live a prisoner.

Reading the kindle edition I missed out on the illustrations, but found a sampling online. Here is one from each of the stories: the wolf Lobo and his mate Blanca, the baby grouse all in a row learning to drink, the rabbit Rags with its mother, the fox (delighted in watching a dog trying to unravel its trail I think).

Rating: 3/5 pages, 1899

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, Re-reads

Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac

by Ernest Thompson Seton

A hunter kills a sow grizzly bear and captures her two cubs. Passing fellow buys them and takes them to a ranch where they live in dull captivity, tormented from time to time by dogs urged to fight. For a show when the bear is larger he is put to fight against a bull but breaks loose and runs off. Learns to survive in the wild by preying upon sheep. One shepherd sees the bear\’s shadow thrown large in the firelight and is convinced it is a monstrous beast, a giant of all bears. His tall tales and the bear\’s predation on flocks bring various men to track him down, those efforts are all related. Finally the bear is hunted down by the very man who once kept him as a cub. The man doesn\’t recognize the bear, but something vaguely familiar in the man\’s scent causes the bear to turn away from the moment of conflict and do no harm. By now stories of the bear have spread far and wind, inciting interest and furor; through it all the bear just wants to be left alone. Men come out hunting him again and finally after many attempts they trap him. Caged in heavy iron, the book closes on a dull, hopeless scene of his misery. Better he had never encountered men at all, was my final impression.

It seems this bear actually existed (although Seton probably made up the events of his early life) and lived his final days caged in Golden Gate Park; this blog post has some drawings by Seton and a photo of the bear. I found more photos and information about the bear on this site as well. I read this book on my kindle.

Rating: 3/5 214 pages, 1904

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Current Reads

Rolf in the Woods

by Ernest Thompson Seton

Focus once again on \”woodcraft\” but this time within a story so I enjoyed it more. Rolf is a young man who through confusing circumstances (the beginning of the book was pretty awkward) is left without family and appointed as ward to a cruel man. He runs away and finds refuge with a Native American who lives on the edge of someone\’s land. The locals soon discover where he is and the community religious leader comes calling, insisting that Rolf live with another family, one known to be very strict. But Rolf has discovered how content he is living rough in the woods. Afraid of being apprehended and forced into civility, he and Quonab pack up and strike out into the wilderness to make their own home.

I found it quite interesting that the minister was horrified at the idea that Rolf would be raised by \”a heathen savage\” when throughout the story it was shown that on the contrary, the native man was far more attentive to his own spirituality than most other characters in the story.

So most of the story is about Rolf and Quonab building their cabin in the woods and establishing a trap line. Quonab teaches Rolf survival skills, how to track wildlife and many other things. They explore a lot and have various adventures along with their small, half-trained dog whose activities constantly amused me. There is an enthralling description of huge flocks of wild pigeons, which neatly dated the story for me. They have continual altercations with an unpleasant man who is stealing from their trapline. This culminates with a heightened incident when the man is caught in a bear trap and Rolf in an act of mercy rescues him. He thinks the man will treat them fairly afterwards in gratitude, but this isn\’t the case. The man turns out to be deceitful and cunning as well, but he has a reputation and other men in the wilderness community step in to administer local justice.

This was one aspect of the book I found disturbing. When the man was caught in the trap his agony was highlighted, and the other men rush in alarm to rescue him, nurse him back to health even though he is their enemy. Yet they continually use these instruments to catch wild animals, often describing the animals\’ struggles and torn bodies without any sympathy for their suffering at all.

There is another main storyline about a young, relatively wealthy man who takes to outdoor life for improvement to his health, with Rolf and Quonab as his guide. Rolf and this man find fault with the other at first, for each lacks knowledge in the others\’ area of expertise (woodcraft and book-learning respectively) but soon they learn to like, respect and learn from each other.

The best part of the book is the overall arc of Rolf\’s growth, as his character develops from an overeager boy rather full of himself, into a young man full of skill and integrity. But unfortunately I lost interest at the end of the book, just when Rolf came into his glory. As one circumstance builds upon another, Rolf and Quonab are enlisted as scouts assisting in the American struggle for independence. So there is a lot of historical battles, names and places suddenly taking over what was an individual story. I\’m sure some readers would find this thrilling, but for me Rolf got lost in the bigger events and I ended up just skimming the last quarter of the book, to know what happened in the end.

Abandoned 373 pages, 1911

Tags: 0/5- Abandoned, Historical Fiction, Juvenile Fic, Nature

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