Wolf girl by Ahn Do

Allen and Unwin, 2019. ISBN: 9781760525095.
(Age: 9+) Highly recommended. Themes: Wolves, Adventure, Survival. When Dad crashes the car in their effort to flee the city and the bombs, he tells her to run and not look back, they will follow her. She does so, realising after a while that she is alone. No one has followed her, least of all her family. But a dog appears from the bush, an orange pup, and he is soon one of four dogs that track about with her, hunting with her, snuggling up for warmth at night, watching out for danger. The group, a chihuahua, a labrador, a greyhound and the pup team up to survive in the forest, initially living on what Gwen has in her backpack, finding food foraging in the forest and when Gwen masters a slingshot, eating small game.
She takes the group back to the cars, finding that she and her pack are the only living things about and they stay at the cars, using them for shelter, trekking out from the cars each day in the search for food and answers. Suitcases left strewn across the road give Gwen new clothes. Warm blankets and sleeping bags are found, food, matches and books are put to good use. The books give Gwen some survival techniques while the dogs collect wood for the fire, and the dogs develop their hunting skills. After a year or so, Gwen sees that her puppy has grown, out stretching all the other dogs, becoming stealthier in its hunting, wary of the other dogs. He is a wolf, but one that stays with Gwen as she survives.
An exciting series of books has Gwen at the centre, alone in a forest, with only a group of dogs as companions. But what companions! Readers will be delighted as they become a close knit pack, each relying on the other to survive, the wolf's skills becoming honed as he learns from the others, particularly the last dog to arrive, the mastiff, Brutus.
Ahn Do includes a host of information about survival, the things that Gwen needs to be aware of and give thought to, and this makes Gwen's story highly readable, with the next in the series looked for. Scroll down here for a book trailer.
Fran Knight