Wolf Girl: Finding Myself in the Wild

Gr 9 Up–This instructional memoir from naturalist and rancher Markegard will guide teen readers struggling to come of age at a time when the natural world faces immense challenges. The author’s awakening to nature as a wildlife tracker is chronicled in detail. What she discovered in the wilds of the North American West led her to gain a deeper knowledge of permaculture, regeneration, and the many shapes of spiritualism that inform those practices. Some of the most compelling passages capture Markegard on the trail of a wolf, bobcat, or mountain lion. Readers become privy to how her senses heightened as she shifted her brain closer towards animal thinking. Readers smell the trees, taste the dirt, and watch the ground. Over the course of 13 chapters, Markegard’s theses about finding purpose and happiness in the natural world do grow repetitive.