Wolf Brother By Michelle Paver

The author and a wolf!

Inspiration for the novel As a child, Michelle Paver loved to dig in her backyard, she wanted to hunt and play with a bow and arrow, and she even wanted a pet wolf! At 25, she had an encounter with a bear “which once again brought those childhood passions to the surface”

Setting Wolf Brother is set in the Stone Age, six thousand years ago. (6000) This was years after the Ice Age, but before farming. The people of northern Europe lived in small clans, hunting and gathering their food.

The author conducted lots of research to learn about clans and how they lived. She also visited more recent traditional people, including the Inuit and Native American peoples, the San of Africa, the Ainu of Japan, the Sami of Lapland, and certain central and south American tribes. www.michellepaver.com

Trends among traditional tribes Because hunter-gatherers travel often, they don't tend to value possessions as much as we do (you wouldn't, would you, if you had to carry them around?). They often don't have a concept of owning land. They value the qualities you need for hunting: patience, resilience, and the ability to listen. Often they treat their spear or bow as a valued `hunting partner', not just as an object. They treat their prey with respect, honouring its spirit, and taking care to use of every part of it.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Wolf Brother is part of a series of books called The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. There are three books in this series.

How would you cope living alone Activity In groups of three or four, answer the following questions: How would you cope living alone in the woods? What would you do to survive? What would you eat? How would you spend your day?