Date Posted	June 22, 2006
News Title	Struggling for Survival: A Boy and A Wolf
Posted By	Bobby Bernshausen
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With countless video games, TV programs and Internet websites, young people today are further removed from the outdoors than ever before. In Brian Connolly’s novel for young adults, Wolf Journal, a boy rediscovers the wonder of nature, and consequently fights to save it. Jimmy Warren is a farm boy living in the Allegheny Mountains of northern Pennsylvania and one day stumbles upon wolf tracks in the snow. But no wolves have been in these woods for a hundred years, and Jimmy’s quest to find this lone wolf leads him deeper into his passion for nature, aided by a Susquehannock Indian storyteller and the beautiful Sherry Woolman. When Jimmy keeps a journal of his secret wolf for a school project, a dangerous pair of would-be bounty hunters threatens to destroy the perfect balance of nature that Jimmy has found. Jimmy must fight to save the wolf and the tranquility of nature, a journey where paw prints in the snow reveal a young man’s struggle to understand and protect his discovered sanctuary. Connolly taught creative writing in New York public schools for 28 years before moving to Oregon to write. Wolf Journal is currently being taught as middle school science and English curriculum. He has published a children’s book Bradley’s Christmas in 1990 and many of his short stories and poems have appeared in literary magazines from Maine to Washington. Connolly grew up in Port Allegheny, the setting for Wolf Journal. He has two children. Wolf Journal is available in softcover (ISBN 1-589397-947-0) and hardcover (ISBN 1-58939-795-9) from Virtualbookworm.com, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. The book can also be ordered from most bookstores around the United States and the United Kingdom. -30-
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