Book Review from a Middle-School Reader

I recently had my oldest write a book review for The Call of the Wild by Jack London. It made me laugh so hard that I am sharing it here with all of you (with his permission). All the spelling and language have been kept the way he wrote it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

The Call of the Wild by Jack London is a book. It has interesting bits, slightly violent bits, and some bits that I skimmed over.

All jokes aside, The Call of the Wild is one of those books, you know the type, the so-called “classics” that everyone is required to read at least once, and therefore very few people actually read for fun. But to be honest, I actually enjoyed this one! Although, I think the version I was reading was the easy mode version.

Anyways, C.O.T.W., as I apparently like to call it seeing as I just typed it that way, is a book with a theme of, well, the WILD (dun dun dunnn)! Basically, the entire book is about a dog named Buck who, at the start of the story, is your average owned-by-a-wealthy-and-dignified-judge type of a dog. But he is kidnapped (or is it dognapped?) and shipped off to new owners in the far, far north.

He is quickly put to work as a sled dog, but it isn’t all running around pulling things, no. Not only does he develop a deep hatred for Spitz, a rival sled-dog and all-around jerk, but he also has to deal with fights, changing owners, and food shortages.

Eventually he ends up under the ownership of a man named John Thornton, who he develops a great deal of affection for. But while under his care, Buck meets and befriends a timber wolf, who leads him to wonder about his ancestors’ wild nature, and his own wild side.

The last straw comes when John Thornton is killed by the Yeehats, a local tribe of Native Americans. This event causes Buck to fly into a rage, kill several Yeehats, and then abandon humanity altogether to join the wolves as the leader of the pack.

So, there you go! I really enjoyed reading it (especially since I got the easy version). If I had to pick a favorite character, well, there was a dog in the book named Dave, and he pretty much just sat around and didn’t participate in anything when he wasn’t pulling the sled, and I thought that was funny. He also seemed really calm compared to the other dogs, and while Buck and Spitz were fighting like mad, he was just sitting there like, “Yeah, whatever”. So that’s why he was my favorite character.

As for my favorite part, I liked the part where John was betting that Buck could pull a 1,000-pound sled, and everyone else thought he couldn’t, but Buck managed to do it anyway. I liked that part because it was really exciting not knowing if Buck could do it or not and then all of a sudden- BAM! He’s totally doing it! It was kind of like watching a really, really close race and not knowing who wins. I enjoyed it.