The great escape by Anh Do
Wolf Girl 2: Allen and Unwin, 2019. ISBN: 9781760876357. pbk.,
206 pgs.
(Age: 8-14) What can't Anh Do do? He is so talented and his books
are 'awesome' as my students say.
With Ahn's writing career he has managed to make reading achievable
for young reluctant readers. I find reluctant readers have difficulty
in reading and don't want to be seen with low level books. Anh Do's
books and similar book series like Bad Guys and Dog
Man are great to get kids reading. Their illustrations are
great and the stories are entertaining.
With the Wolf Girl series Ahn Do has taken a step further and
has written a more mature type story that looks like a novel that
won't take weeks to finish. His writing style is very easy to read
and I kept thinking one of my kids could have written this book but
you can see that it's written in this way to get kids reading. This
writing style is very smart. I use his books all the time in class
to encourage kids who hate reading and have trouble reading. The
kids seemed to their peers to be reading their level books which
actually gets them reading because they are fun. Wolf Girl 2:
The great escape is all about survival, importance of
teamwork, love, loyalty, bravery and of course friendship. Gwen the
main human character is easily likeable and we read her story and
adventures with her family/pack of dogs. Any dog lover will love the
friendship Gwen has with her pack. Anh Do has also managed to make
something traumatic into a story that is not distressing and very
suitable for younger readers.
As soon as I started Wolf Girl 2 I couldn't put it down but
I got confused about what was happening at the start because I
haven't read the first book so I didn't know the background of
what was happening. The book starts with Gwen in the back of a truck
and you realise that she was kidnapped from somewhere at the end of
book one. Once into the book you could work out the story and what
had happened before. I now have a copy of book 1 and will start it
shortly, that's how much I enjoyed Wolf Girl 2. Oh and hurry
up with book three because I can't wait! The illustrations were great
which broke up the amount of writing on a page. This was good to not
panic young readers with the length.
If you are looking for a good read for primary school kids look no
further, the Wolf Girl series is the book for you.
Maria Komninos