Three gray wolf cubs learn to catch prey, respect dangerous creatures, learn a special skill gray wolves have, and more. But what happens when the most adventurous cub goes too far? Can his mother save him from angry hawks?
Thornton W. Burgess was one of the most popular and loved children’s authors of his time. Generations later, parents and grandparents still enthusiastically introduce his work to young children today.
It isn’t just that his stories are very entertaining. Burgess was also one of the most knowledgeable naturalists of his day, and almost every chapter describes real wild animal behavior. More than any other children’s author before or since, he gives his young readers a genuine sense of what it’s like to live as the wild animals in his stories. His books are as educational as they are enjoyable.
Burgess is best known today for Old Mother West Wind and the Bedtime Stories series such as The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel. But from 1912 through 1960, Burgess wrote a daily syndicated newspaper column of animal stories for children — 15,000 daily episodes in all. Most of his books were derived from those newspaper stories. Usually each daily episode would become one chapter in the book.
But only about a tenth of those newspaper episodes ever became books. The rest were never published again during his lifetime, and only a handful of those have ever been published in any form since then.
This story about three gray wolf cubs was originally syndicated in newspapers from June 20 through July 27, 1955. It was never published again until now, in this volume. The only other way to read this story is to find Burgess’ column in each of the thirty-three 1955 newspapers in which it appeared.
Each of the 33 daily episodes had a small illustration by Harrison Cady, well-known for illustrating most of Burgess’ books. All of those illustrations are included here. They are small and simple, meant for printing within a single newspaper column no more than two inches wide, but they all have Cady’s signature charm.
If you have enjoyed Thornton W. Burgess’ other wonderful children’s stories, you’ll love this one too!
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