Set in Yellowstone Park and narrated by Maggie, a clever magpie who becomes part of the wolf pack, the story centers on themes of friendship, integrity and the importance of being true to oneself. Don't miss the chapter in which his students come face-to-face with a giant mound of thatching ants.įirstborn, TOR SEIDLER, '72 Atheneum Books for Young Readers, $16.99. Chasing butterflies and falling for a coyote, Lamar, firstborn son of alpha wolf Blue Boy, isn't living up to his father's standards. Nisbet, a teacher, shares the rich history of the Pacific Northwest through stories on the area's geography, topography and biology, not to mention its people and their relationship with the land. Tales of her youthful fits and starts could spark nostalgia even in those who didn't grow up romping around the woods with near-complete freedom.Īncient Places: People and Landscape in the Emerging Northwest, JACK NISBET, '71 Sas quatch Books, $21.95. The Slow Farm, TARN WILSON, MA '94 Ovenbird, $18. Wilson takes a look back at her life as a daughter of hippie parents, antiestablishment escapists who set up camp on a remote island off British Columbia in the early 1970s. (Mar.-ELIZABETH ROSNER, '81, in Electric City Counterpoint Press, $26. Themes of self-acceptance, devotion, and integrity resonate as Maggie and others act on wisdom she learns from her first friend, Jackson the crow: “you can’t be loyal to others if you’re not loyal to your own nature first.” A moving acknowledgement of true friendship provides a heartwarming conclusion to this absorbing tale.

National Book Award finalist Seidler illuminates a world full of beauty (“leaves had broken out of their buds, like butterflies out of their cocoons”), danger, and the struggle to survive: deaths come fast and frequent for predators and prey alike. Wilderness of Montana and Wyoming just as wolves are being reintroduced to Yellowstone Park.

After Maggie realizes that she is different from other magpies (“the thought of spending my whole life with Dan and his junk made me shudder”), she takes off to explore the The designation “firstborn” applies to several characters in Seidler’s animal adventure-the effervescent narrator, Maggie the magpie Blue Boy, a wolf who accepts Maggie as an unofficial pack member and Lamar, Blue Boy’s eldest son, who wrestles with familial duties and his unorthodox love for a coyote.

Firstborn tor seidler