The Call of the Wild

Going through my 5th and 7th graders papers about The Call of the Wild, I was so impressed with this exerpt by Dylan:

"One of the reasons Jack London might have written The Call of the Wild is because he wanted to talk about what happened to him in the harsh cold Yukon. He might want to talk about how these people treated their dogs as if they were a can of soda. Use them to drive them around, then just let them sit there and starve, throwing them away. Then Jack London might have saved a dog, and kept him as a pet. He might be making John (Thornton) him.

In The Call of the Wild Buck loves being a pet, being loved by man and getting whatever he wants, not needing to get his own food. Then he gets brought into the real world, hates it until he knows that he can become a leader. Now if he saw Judge Miller I bet Buck would not run to him. He would rather be in Alaska hunting his own food and killing anything in his way.

In that way The Call of the Wild is one of the best books I've ever read. It talks about a dog changing his ways and learning to deal with the natural world around him, and to become what he really is inside.

The Call of the Wild has great vocabulary, and great sentences describing the building or land Buck is in. For example, on page 128, "And truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels and dragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees." You can picture yourself watching Buck chasing after the Yeehats and scaring them off away from John Thornton's dead body. Like I said, this book had many sides and many choices you could choose from. You could vote for a dog named Spitz in one of his battles, and a sled runner named Francois vs. Hal. But the book, the way Jack London wrote the book, made you want to vote for one of those guys. The way he only let you hear about Buck's background made you think Buck had it harder than the other guys. Jack London made you think that Hal was awful to the dogs, and Francois was better, but not perfect. With Spitz treating Buck like a jerk, it makes you want to vote for Buck and want Buck to kill Spitz instead of Spitz killing Buck. That's one of the many things that I like about this book. And I would recommend this book to anyone who believes in luck, trust and faith. The book The Call of the Wild is not a normal book. It has fear, proudness, sickening feelings, and joyfulness.

If you read The Call of the Wild you'll find a hero that you'll look up to, but you'll also find a monster that you would never trust. You'll find soething to say, "At least my life isn't as bad as his." You will read about him working hard, and having his stomach begging for food, but you will also read about a monster killing anything in his way, no matter if it's a Grizzly, moose, or a Yeehat Native, he will defeat it. You will also read about a hero, a hero to all dogs, giving them hope that you can survive in the harsh winters in the middle of the Yukon, and you can try to outmatch your owner by beating the laws of the club and fang. He'll teach you how to survive no matter if you have someone like John Thornton to back you up or not. He'll show you how to hunt in this book, and he'll give you a story you'll never forget. Something you'll dream about."


This is the ending of a two page essay. Nice job!