White Fang

White Fang
Jack London

The first thing I should say is that I’m not going to do a traditional review of White Fang. No summary of the book. But I am going to take the time to talk about how I felt about the book.

I should start out by saying that I didn’t set out with a good attitude towards White Fang. I don’t really like reading animal books, and I don’t care for Jack London. Why read it to begin with? Because it’s on North Carolina’s Battle of the Books list and I’m the coach for my school.

White Fang is divided into five parts – for me the first four parts were pure torture. Jack London is an excellent writer, and I could see how the book would appeal to many (my husband loves it), but where I read 9 books during Mother Reader’s 48 hour challenge, it took me 7 days to get this book read. I will say that I enjoyed the last part so the book ended on a positive note for me.

I was taken aback by the brutality in White Fang. The wolf is horribly beaten on several occasions, and he is forced to participate in dog fights. While I wasn’t necessarily surprised to find these scenes in the book, it was quite painful to read them and they were one of the reasons I could only take the book in small doses.