I sleep with a dictionary under my pillow, sometimes. Just to remind me that there are more words in the world than 'Come here, boy.'" It took Feo ten minutes to ski to the ruins of the stone chapel. At the entrance hall were three dilapidated statues of saints: They had no heads, and two of them had grown a scaly skin of green lichen. Even without heads, the saints managed to look unimpressed by this state of affairs. Only two and a half of the chapel walls were still standing, and the roof had long ago crumbled onto the mosaic floor below. There were pews, half eaten away by woodworm, and a marble miniature of the Virgin, which Feo had cleaned with the chewed end of a twig. If the light was right in the chapel, and if you looked closely, you could see that the walls had once been painted with gold figures. It was, Feo thought, the most beautiful place on earth.

I badly wanted to love this book. On the surface, it holds so much promise: why wouldn't I be excited about a sharp-elbowed Russian heroine who spends her time teaching partially domesticated wolves to howl again? Plus, I've enjoyed the author's other works, and I've been excited about this one since I saw it on display (but not being distributed) at ALA. It is, without a doubt, one of the prettier books I've bought this year.I can't even choose which character I loved more, they were all so kind hearted and brave and everyone had something that just made you love them. But of course Feo was a great main character with her naive, but brave point of view and Ilya who became such a good friend to Feo, even if they didn't met in good circumstances. A gorgeous flight of imagination set in a snowy Russian fantasy world, this has both the beauty and the fierce, funny and uncompromising storytelling style that sets Katherine Rundell's books apart. The Wolf Wilder is a Faberge egg of a novel - rich, bright and perfect Robin Stevens No. No, neither of those things is true,” said Feo’s mother. “Other people send the wolves when they tire of them: the aristocrats, the rich. We untame them, that’s all. And wolves cannot be owned.”

In both The Wolf Wilder and Rooftoppers the young male characters are very kind to the main female character. Did you set out to show young men in this way? The book had me gripped from the very beginning, and there were parts in the story that I just couldn’t put down. The whole book was very fast paced and it is one of those stories you could just sit down on the sofa on an afternoon and just read. Wait!” said Marina. She stood in the doorway. There was a bruise on her cheek that had not been there before. “Can’t you see this is my daughter’s room?” twelve-year-old feodora petrovna and her mother marina live in a secluded forest just outside of st. petersburg in 1917.* feo is a half-wild child who hasn't seen many humans in her life. she and her mother work as wolf wilders - people who remind wolves how to be wolves when the aristocrats who have raised them from cubs to be pets grow tired of them, or when the wolves, crazed by captivity, became too dangerous to remain in the households.This was a simple, yet powerful little story about bravery and the power of friendship. It's set in snowy Russia and features some pretty adorable characters with a lot of personality and even more heart. I try to get quite a lot done before 10am, so I often wake up early and write in the dark, with a cup of coffee, in bed: and I also write in libraries and cafés and anywhere I can balance my laptop. For example, Feo chases away some of Rakov's men from a village, not understanding that they can return, in greater numbers, and do far more harm than they'd originally intended. When this is pointed out to her, she ropes the other children into whittling "wolves' paws," which they can tie to their hands and feet and use to leave intimidating pawprints around the village. This will, somehow, frighten the dozens of gun-toting soldiers away. Obviously nothing comes of this plan, but what I don't understand is why it's included to begin with. That's not the only incident of its kind. The first half of the book is 90% running away from people through the woods, and it got boring for me as an adult, so imagine how bored a Middle Grade age reader would get. Then there is the long droning on about politics, also glazed look inducing for a MG reader. The political speech towards the end of the book... waaaaaay toooooooo loooooooong. The finale read like an unedited brain puke of a first draft. It was like listening to a five year old tell a made up story at the dinner table. I was so disappointed this book didn't live up to its synopsis. It was a huge let down.