Gone Wolf
Gone Wolf
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Feiwel & Friends
Annotation: In Gone Wolf , her first middle-grade novel, award-winning author Amber McBride explores Black pain, trauma, and ultimately, healing through the story of what might happen if white supremacists ceded from the rest of the country.
 
Reviews: 5
Catalog Number: #378374
Format: Publisher's Hardcover
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Copyright Date: 2023
Edition Date: 2023 Release Date: 10/03/23
Pages: 348 pages
ISBN: 1-250-85049-5
ISBN 13: 978-1-250-85049-2
Dewey: Fic
LCCN: 2023018024
Dimensions: 22 cm
Language: English
Reviews:
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Wed Dec 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Starred Review There are two realities for Imogen. In one reality, she is simply known as Inmate Eleven, and she lives in the Bible Boot, a place that has reinstated slavery for Black Americans. Some of those enslaved people are so sad that they have physically turned blue. Imogen is one of those "blue" people, one who lives in a prison with her wolf-dog, Ira. Imogen yearns to be free of the binds that the "clones" harness her with. In another reality, Imogen is a girl in the modern world, dealing with the aftermath of racial violence, a devastating virus, post-election discord, and the death that links all of these things in her life. National Book Award finalist McBride, author of Me (Moth) (2021), is a master at crafting characters who are unapologetically flawed, a pattern that continues in this, her middle-grade debut. Imogen's character perfectly personifies the continuous shroud of grief that Black Americans have to live with in a post-pandemic, post-2016 election world. But even with the integration of the theme of grief throughout the novel, there is still the insistence of hope. McBride examines the beauty in Black resilience and the importance of building community. This novel is an integral addition to the children's literary canon.

Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

A 12-year-old Black girl deals with fear, grief, pain, and suffering caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and America's history of enslavement and racist violence.It's the year 2111, and Inmate Eleven is undergoing a test. She must decide which is better: the blond, blue-eyed, light-skinned doll or the doll with blue skin and hair like her own. Inmate Eleven's world is cruel and fractured: As a Blue, she's separated from the pale-skinned Clones and has been isolated in a cell her whole life. Her only source of comfort is her dog, Ira; they both long for escape. "Bible Boot" flash cards fill in the backstory through references to an alternate but recognizable history: a 2016 election, xenophobia, a wall, a worldwide virus, and vaccines. Blues are regarded as inferior, their bodies exploited to prolong the lives of Clones; they are actually Black Americans whose stolen freedom has caused them to turn blue with sadness. Back in 2022, Imogen is trapped by fear and grief from racist violence and devastating pandemic losses. She finds relief and healing through sharing her stories and builds relationships with Black role models like her therapist and her mentor from the Big Sister program. Textbook pages at the ends of chapters share true Black history. McBride's multidimensional genius shines through, artfully exposing the reality that Black Americans have lived lifetimes of dystopias. She scrupulously guides the complicated storyline and hard histories with context, definitions, and word choices.Raw, incisive, and authentic. (author's note) (Fiction. 11-16)

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

A 12-year-old Black girl deals with fear, grief, pain, and suffering caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and America's history of enslavement and racist violence.It's the year 2111, and Inmate Eleven is undergoing a test. She must decide which is better: the blond, blue-eyed, light-skinned doll or the doll with blue skin and hair like her own. Inmate Eleven's world is cruel and fractured: As a Blue, she's separated from the pale-skinned Clones and has been isolated in a cell her whole life. Her only source of comfort is her dog, Ira; they both long for escape. "Bible Boot" flash cards fill in the backstory through references to an alternate but recognizable history: a 2016 election, xenophobia, a wall, a worldwide virus, and vaccines. Blues are regarded as inferior, their bodies exploited to prolong the lives of Clones; they are actually Black Americans whose stolen freedom has caused them to turn blue with sadness. Back in 2022, Imogen is trapped by fear and grief from racist violence and devastating pandemic losses. She finds relief and healing through sharing her stories and builds relationships with Black role models like her therapist and her mentor from the Big Sister program. Textbook pages at the ends of chapters share true Black history. McBride's multidimensional genius shines through, artfully exposing the reality that Black Americans have lived lifetimes of dystopias. She scrupulously guides the complicated storyline and hard histories with context, definitions, and word choices.Raw, incisive, and authentic. (author's note) (Fiction. 11-16)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This profound middle grade debut by McBride (We Are All So Good at Smiling), set in 2111 and 2022, follows two Black tweens navigating grief and racism. In 2111, in the Bible Boot, pale-skinned Clones are the ruling class while Black children called Blues are kept separate from society. A Blue girl called Inmate Eleven lives under confinement with her genetically modified dog Ira, whose tendency to “go wolf” inspires her to imagine a world elsewhere. As Inmate Eleven learns more about the systemic racism against Blues in the Bible Boot, she discovers that everything she’s learned about the world under Clone leadership has been a lie, and longs for escape. Meanwhile, in 2022 America, 12-year-old Imogen grapples with the long-term effects of an unnamed virus that has ravaged the nation while working through an unspecified traumatic event in therapy. McBride skillfully weaves each girl’s experience into the other’s via callbacks. In this weighty read, which explores the consequences of loss, quarantine, and racism on Black youth, the author employs brilliantly inventive storytelling as a tool through which the protagonists process their grief and find their people. An author’s note details historical events addressed in the book. Ages 10–14. (Oct.)

Reviewing Agencies: - Find Other Reviewed Titles
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Wed Dec 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)
Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
School Library Journal (Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Word Count: 65,810
Reading Level: 4.5
Interest Level: 5-9
Accelerated Reader: reading level: 4.5 / points: 10.0 / quiz: 522427 / grade: Middle Grades+
Lexile: 700L

Award-winning author Amber McBride lays bare the fears of being young and Black in America, in this middle-grade novel that has been compared to the work of Jordan Peele and praised as " brilliantly inventive storytelling" by Publishers Weekly. . In the future, a Black girl known only as Inmate Eleven is kept confined -- to be used as a biological match for the president's son, should he fall ill. She is called a Blue -- the color of sadness. She lives in a small-small room with her dog, who is going wolf more often - he's pacing and imagining he's free. Inmate Eleven wants to go wolf too--she wants to know why she feels so Blue and what is beyond her small-small room. In the present, Imogen lives outside of Washington DC. The pandemic has distanced her from everyone but her mother and her therapist. Imogen has intense phobias and nightmares of confinement. Her two older brothers used to help her, but now she's on her own, until a college student helps her see the difference between being Blue and sad, and Black and empowered. In this symphony of a novel, award-winning author Amber McBride lays bare the fears of being young and Black in America, and empowers readers to remember their voices and stories are important, especially when they feel the need to go wolf.


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