Tag Archives: A Wolf Called Wander

World Read Aloud Day

February 3, 2021 is World Read Aloud Day. I’ll be celebrating four ways. First, by reading aloud to 14 classrooms in Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Georgia. I wish it could be 100!

If your classroom or homeschool group didn’t get an author visit for World Read Aloud Day, here is a video of me reading a two and a half minute piece from A Whale of the Wild. The link is right here. If you are a fan of A Wolf Called Wander there’s also read aloud link for that one. It’s a slightly longer segment at just over four minutes

I want to celebrate World Read Aloud Day by giving away ten copies of the brand new paperback edition of A Wolf Called Wander to teachers and librarians who have done so much to bring this book into the lives of children. I couldn’t do it without you all and I’m very grateful. If you are a teacher or school librarian and would like a free signed copy of the new paperback, please use the contact me feature on this website and send me the name of your school, and the address where I should send the book. Because teachers in the east will see this message hours before teachers in the west I’ll give away half to books to folks in the eastern and central time zones and half to the mountain and pacific time zone. I hope that will be fair to everyone.

A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry Illustrated by Mónica Armiño

And finally wonderful local bookshop Annie Blooms set up a book page for me in honor of World Read Aloud Day. It will be up for a week. Use this link and you can get any of my books. Let me know who you’d like me to dedicate the book to and I’ll sign it and send it your way. Thank you for supporting the indie bookstores who have supported my writing for many years!

And what am I reading aloud these days you ask? Well, I’m reading one very old book and one brand new one. Roughing It by Mark Twain is both hilarious and a useful window into what it was like to travel across country by stage coach and live in a mining boomtown in the 1860s. In a word–messy. It was published in 1872. I’m also very excited about a debut book that came out in December of 2020, A Wolf For a Spell by Karah Sutton. It’s a rollicking fable with elements of Russian folk lore. It’s got Baba Yaga of course, plus a wolf that was just minding it’s own business, a dastardly villain, stout-hearted girls, and compassionate boys. Delicious!

A Wolf for a Spell by Karah Sutton illustrated by Pauliina Hannuniemi

On Losing a Book Tour

My commute today is a few dozen steps to the corner of the yard where my tiny studio is waiting for me as it has every day for the past ten years. Today was going to be the start of a publisher sponsored book tour, my very first in more than 20 years as a working writer. It would have been in support of the paperback release of A Wolf Called Wander. I would have traveled across the country and met and been inspired by thousands of students and their wonderful teachers and librarians. I would have made new indie bookseller friends and seen cities I’ve never visited and had new and interesting research opportunities. And I would have sold hundreds of books. Now, because of the pandemic, that opportunity is gone and nothing will bring it back.

And I am feeling such gratitude! First, and most importantly, I’m grateful to all the school boards and superintendents who made the call to close schools and protect the families they serve. I’m in awe of the energy they’ve thrown into educating their students at home. I’m intensely proud of my fellow booksellers who have sacrificed income in favor of the safety of their shop patrons–many of whom are the grandmas and grandpas of my readers. Special cheers to those who are scrambling to make books available to their communities via mail and delivery and ebooks and downloadable audio. I’m thankful that my publisher HarperCollins has valued my safety over their profits and not even asked me to do something that would put myself and my family at risk. I’m grateful to have a roof over my head and my family at my side in these heart-rending times. I’m thankful to be able to stay in and do what I can to protect those for whom staying at home is not possible. I’m grateful for the vast majority of Americans who understand the importance of elective quarantine and hand hygiene.

One thing I came to appreciate in researching A Wolf Called Wander and it’s companion A Whale of the Wild, is that humans are pack animals too. And we are being hunted by a microscopic creature, weak out in the air, but intensely powerful once it breaks the fortress of our lungs. Thousands of our fellow pack members have fallen prey to it. Even so the human pack has the upper hand. Because a virus can’t run. It can’t even crawl. It can only get from one human to the next if a human carries it. And so I’m sending up a howl of solidarity to my fellow pack members, today and everyday, until victory is ours. I will do everything in my power to starve our predator and I will trust my fellow humans to chose life over profit and do the same.

For Wolf Fans

If you are studying at home and love wolves, here’s some bonus content for middle grade students who liked A Wolf Called Wander.

Here are the resources I referenced in the video. If you are looking for information about animals of the world, national geographic has a terrific website for kids. For information about Oregon animals and habitats try the Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife.

If you want to look at some wolves and track their behavior like a wildlife biologist does, you could follow this link to the Wolf Conservation Center in New York where they have some wolves you can watch on wildlife cameras. bit.ly/34ulJH4 will take you there.

If you just want to practice drawing a wolf, here is one of illustrator Mónica Armiño’s pictures for practice and inspiration.

And finally if you want to write me a letter, you can reach me at the bookstore where I work: Annie Blooms Books, 3834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, Oregon 97219. I promise I’ll write back and send you a signed bookplate.