The Call of the Wild (Aladdin Classics) [Paperback]

Gary Paulsen (Foreword), Jack London (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 1, 2003 | Age Range: 9 and up | Series: Aladdin Classics

First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5 Up?These two classics receive fresh and worthy treatment in this new series. Children raised on computer games and frenetic television images may find the writings of Kipling and London to be old-fashioned and unrelated to the worlds they know best. That's why these books are a welcome addition to most collections. Kipling's stories of Mowgli, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and Toomai of the elephants and London's story of the heroic dog Buck are superbly packaged. The original, unabridged texts are presented along with period maps and photographs, historical etchings and engravings, and newly created full-color illustrations that supply invaluable detail and background. Generous and colorfully presented details about the places, times, people, events, and natural life provide vital context. In The Jungle Book, readers learn about the English colonization of India, the domestication of elephants, purported cases of "wild children" raised by wolves, India's thick-lipped bears, panthers, wolves, mongooses, Bengal tigers, and myriad other details that contribute to fuller and more enjoyable appreciation of Mowgli's adventures in the lush jungle landscape of 19th-century India. Similarly, visual and print information about the Klondike, the Alaskan Gold Rush of 1896, sled dogs, wolves, and Jack London enrich the reading experience of young people first encountering The Call of the Wild. Both books are handsome to look at, inviting to read, and a boon to anyone charged with introducing today's youth to classic works.?Jerry D. Flack, University of Colorado
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and often considered to be his masterpiece. London's version of the classic quest story using a dog as the protagonist has sometimes been erroneously categorized as a children's novel. Buck, who is shipped to the Klondike to be trained as a sled dog, eventually reverts to his primitive, wolflike ancestry. He then undertakes an almost mythical journey, abandoning the safety of his familiar world to encounter danger, adventure, and fantasy. When he is transformed into the legendary "Ghost Dog" of the Klondike, he has become a true hero. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Age Range: 9 and up
  
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Aladdin (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689856741
• ISBN-13: 978-0689856747
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (767 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #99,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Buck realizes his potential December 25, 2009

By bernie HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

Gold was found in Alaska, the rush to obtain it required a strong constitution and many dogs to do the work that horses usually did in the states. The environment bread harsh attitudes. Also in the testing of ones mettle one finds their true potential.

Buck (a dog that is half St Bernard and half Shepherd) goes through many lives, trials, and tribulations finally realizing his potential. On the way he learns many concepts from surprise, to deceit, and cunning; he also learns loyalty, devotion, and love. As he is growing he feels the call of the wild.

This book is well written. There is not a wasted word or thought and the story while building on its self has purpose and direction. The descriptions may be a tad graphic for the squeamish and a tad sentimental for the romantic. You see the world through Buck's eyes and understand it through his perspective until you also feel the call of the wild.

The Call of the Wild - Dog of the Yukon (1997)

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not only a great novel about dogs, but also a perceptive comment on the human condition August 26, 2005

By D. Cloyce Smith TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Jack London's letters about the publication of "The Call of the Wild" reveal an all-too-common story that would make any author and most sympathetic readers cringe. In 1903, Jack London was hard up for cash and had just completed the manuscript. He sold the serial rights to the Saturday Evening Post for $700 and, since the editors were not all that keen on his first choice, suggested the title "The Sleeping Wolf." (Interestingly enough, the magazine version did not even include what has probably become the book's most famous scene: when John Thornton blusteringly makes a wager that Buck can pull a sled weighing half a ton.)

Soon after, Macmillan agreed to take a chance on the unknown writer and offered to publish the book for $2,000, with no royalties. By this time, London had warmed to his initial title, "The Call of the Wild," but left the final choice up to his editor. Both the magazine and the book publisher reluctantly used London's now-famous title, and seven years later London wrote to his editor, reminding him of his tin ear: "I'll be damned if that very muchly-rejected title didn't become a phrase in the English language. This is only one of many experiences concerning titles, wherein editors, booksellers, and publishers absolutely missed."

But it still boggles the mind that London earned a grand total of $2,700 for a book that quickly sold more than two million copies.

And what a book! I must have read it three or four times as a youngster, but even now, over twenty years since I last picked it up, it still manages to electrify me. "The Call of the Wild" is often cited as the best work of fiction ever written about dogs, but the book is equally about men--and about London himself. As a puppy, Buck is like a human child--dependent on his benefactors and with few cares in the world. But soon he is wrenched from his first home, ending up in Alaska to perform the most menial tasks in appalling conditions for a series of contemptible owners--much like the impoverished London himself who, beginning at the age of 14, went from cannery employee to oyster pirate to jute mill laborer to vagrant to prisoner to laundry worker to would-be gold prospector. In such conditions, both dogs and humans resort to their most primitive, robotic instincts.

"The Call of the Wild," however, is not only about descent into feral survivalism. It's also about the irrepressible yearning for independence and even solitude, and it shares a good deal, thematically, with London's social writings. If you tend to think that London's masterpiece is little more than a work of children's literature, you might want to visit it again and see how it works as an allegory. While it's certainly a great novel about dogs, it's also a perceptive statement on the human condition.

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping story of survival October 16, 2006

By Brian & Randy VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

London is a tremendously talented writer and his understanding of life matches his tremendous knowledge of the snow-enshrouded world of the upper latitudes. His writing is beautiful, poignant, and powerful, yet also somber, morose, and infinitely real. This isn't a story to read when you are depressed. Although The Call of the Wild is a short novel and on the surface a dog's story, it contains as much truth and reality of man's own struggles as that which can be sifted from the life's work of many other respected authors. The story he tells is stark and real, and as such, it is not pretty picture he paints, nor an elevating story he writes.

As an animal lover, I found parts of this story heartbreaking from Buck's removal from the civilized Southland in which he reigned supreme among his animal kin to the brutal cold and even more brutal machinations of hard, weathered men who literally beat him and whipped him full of lashes. Even sadder are the stories of the dogs that fill the sled's traces around him. Good-spirited Curly never had a chance, while Dave's story is only made bearable because of his brave, undying spirit. Even Spitz, the harsh taskmaster, has to be pitied, despite his harsh nature, for the reader knows this harsh nature was forced upon him by man and his thirst for riches.

Buck's travails are long and hard, but it is his nobility of his spirit that makes of him a hero, despite the primitive animal instincts and urges that dominate him. Buck not only conquers the weather, the harshness of the men, the other dogs and the wolves he comes into contact with, he thrives. Hopes for redemption with John Thornton are dashed in the end, and that's when Buck finally gives in fully to "the call of the wild," becoming a creature of nature only. While this is a sad ending, the reader also feels joy and satisfaction at Buck's refusal to surrender and his ability to find his own kind of happiness in the harsh world in which he is placed.