Cover: John Fordham. Illustrations: Geoff Taylor
‘All his life the forest had helped him. It had given him everything he needed to survive, it had never let him down. And it was with him now, its green souls cleansing his spirit like clear water.’ (p 149)
Prehistory in children’s fiction
The late, great Rosemary Sutcliff and other children’s writers (Kathleen Fidler and Henry Treece, for example) used their considerable skill in historical fiction to delve as far back as the Bronze Age. However, there have been relatively few children’s books set in the very earliest times of our history. Even fewer have been fully successful. A period so far removed from our own knowledge and experience is perhaps difficult to relate to. Necessarily there is precious little known of the detail of life then and the relatively simple hunter/gatherer existence may seem to lack the potential for a good children’s story. There have, though, been a few exceptions that have overcome, and even revelled in, these limitations. In the 1970s John Christopher explored the timeless conflict between violence and reason within a pre-historic context. In the wonderful Dom and Va he brought together a boy from a violent Palaeolithic tribe with a girl from a very different one; a sort of Stone Age ‘Romeo and Juliet’, if you like, that used pre-history as a canvas on which to paint images relevant to the world of contemporary children. The 1980s saw two equally remarkable books, Justin Denxel’s Boy in the Painted Cave and US author, Ann Turnbull’s Maroo of the Winter Cave. Perhaps even more, special, in the 1990s, one of the all-time great children’s writers, Peter Dickinson, brought early prehistory vividly to life in a quartet of stories collectively entitled The Kin. What he did was to postulate, probably quite rightly, that the basic, emotional needs and experiences of children back then were not unlike ours, even though their lives were so very different.
Wolf Brother hits the jackpot
I suspect most of these titles are sadly overlooked these days, but they remain well worth seeking out for keen, able readers. However such successes with writing children’s prehistorical fiction are rarities, so it was a truly stunning achievement, when, between 2004 and 2009, Michelle Paver created, her Wolf Brother series (sometimes known collectively as The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness). Set around six thousand years ago, just after the Ice Age, these books were not only quite superlative pieces of children’s writing, but deservedly brought her a huge, enthusiastic readership, here and internationally.
Of course, it is not really appropriate to talk about historical accuracy in the recreation of a prehistoric period. However, drawing on the comparative little that can be deduced from archeology, together with knowledge of tribal behaviours in more recent times, Michelle Paver was able to use her own strong imagination to flesh out the detail of life in these harsh climes and times. The result is both credible and fascinating.
Perhaps more than anything she vividly re-creates a world where the animals who share each landscape play a huge part in the lives of the people. Whether prey or predators, vital for sustaining life, but constantly threatening it too, wild creatures necessarily feature with heightened awareness in daily existence, and Michelle Paver handles this exceptionally intimate coexistence with as much sensitivity for the animals as for her human characters. Of course, central to her stories is the relationship between protagonist, Torak, and his ‘pack brother’ Wolf. This often deeply moving pairing, plays no small part in bringing their remotely distant life into the understanding of her readers, for what young person does not immediately empathise with an child-animal bonding, whenever or wherever it happens?
One of this authors many fine achievements is to add in the imagined voice of the wolf itself as an occasional commentator on the events of the story. She does this by creating a language for the creature that, whilst totally comprehensible, is distinctly different from our own and uses vocabulary that reflects its lupine understanding of the world. Such anthropomorphism is clearly a literary device, yet she knows enough about the behaviours and species-specific communication of the real creatures, to make this ‘wolf-think’ both convincing and revelatory.
To this mixture of vivid pre-historic life with great sensitivity to animals, Michelle Paver adds a third crucial dimension to her stories, that of magic. Although fantasy in itself, this too is sufficiently grounded in what we know of the superstitious beliefs of ancient peoples to make it totally credible. This is earth magic, concerned with the spirits of natural things, the influence of ancestors, the out-of-body journeying of the shaman, and the hideous threat of ‘soul eaters’. It is spine-tinglingly terrifying in context.
Michelle Paver’s amalgam of pre-history, animals and magic in the Wolf Brother sequence of novels is literary creativity of the highest order.
Long awaited (?) return
However the 2009 volume of these ‘chronicles’, Ghost Hunter, states quite clearly that it is ’the sixth and final book.’ Almost bereaved, countless fans, like me, took Michelle Paver at her word and had to say farewell to the adventures of Torak and his wolf brother. Presumably she meant what she said at the time, and went on to write other successful books, most recently some very highly regarded fiction for adults. It was therefore a wonderful surprise to discover that, over ten years later, she has now extended her original series into a new novel, Viper’s Daughter.
The cover of this recent title bears the strap line: ‘The Long Awaited Return to the World of Wolf Brother’. For me, and I suspect many others, this is not strictly accurate. I had not awaited this sequel, simply because I had no expectation whatsoever of it coming. Torak’s return belongs firmly in a category with that of Sherlock Holmes. However, this does not stop it being one of the most thrilling reappearances of contemporary children’s literature.
Can it be as good?
Nevertheless, I did start this ‘return to the world of Wolf Brother’ with some trepidation. The question that hung in the air was whether Michelle Paver would be able to recapture effectively the riches of her world and characters after a gap more than ten years. I need not have worried, for within pages she re-immerses both herself and her readers in the ongoing narrative. Once again her recreation of the distant past leaps off the page through her vivid and engaging writing, and we continue to share in the life Torak, his mate Ren and, of course, Wolf, as if we had never left.
Indeed it can
Again too, Michelle Paver’s painting of the landscape of this time-distant world, and her conjuring of its creatures, complement the adventures of her characters, with engrossing richness. In this book, her depictions of a herd of Mastodon, or ‘Mammuts’, their behaviour resembling that of hugely outsized elephants, are truly gripping. These creatures, believed to have long died out, even by the characters in the story, are discovered to have survived on a remote, isolated island, and prove to play a significant role in subsequent events.
Each of the Wolf Brother stories is an exciting adventure in itself, and Viper’s Daughter is no less so. In fact it hurtles the reader along from one viscerally exciting and vividly evoked incident to the next, and all within the context of a plot line that twists and turns, pulling emotions about and keeping the reader engrossed. Yet it is the profound connection with the natural world that for me is the powerful essence of both the series as a whole and this latest instalment in particular. In taking us back to a world long past, Michelle Paver re-kindles in us, a relationsip half lost, but also half remembered, a relationship with the pungent scents of the Forest, with the tugging currents of the sea, with the powerful spirit of natural things, sometimes benign, sometimes malevolent and sometimes merely indifferent. She reconnects us with the earth on which we live and in which our souls reside. It is a wonderful gift to give.
Matching the set
As a collector, as well as a reader, of children’s books of this quality, I am delighted that. Despite the intervening years, publisher, Head of Zeus,, have continued the format and design of the original set of novels, which came out under the’Orion’ imprint. This has given us a most elegant matching set of hardbacks, enhanced by the clever designs of John Fordham, which skilfully depict the characters with an extreme stylisation that captures something of the essence of cave paintings. Even more to be celebrated are Geoff Taylor’s internal illustrations. His superb chapter head vignettes have always been, for me, a vital and integral part of these volumes and it is a major regret that he has never been more prominently acknowledged on the cover. He evokes the world of the story, and particularly its creatures, with great sensitivity. He has a particular talent for capturing the body language and looks of the wild animals he depicts, expressing exactly the appropriate instincts and responses for the story, without ever in any way anthropomorphising them. That his drawings so perfectly and evocatively complement the essence of the narrative is a perfect testament to the quality of both.
We are now promised a further Wolf Brother novel to follow this, called Skin Taker, due, we are told, in 2021. Now that one, when it eventually arrives, will indeed be ‘long awaited’, by me and, I am sure, countless others.
