Letter to the Author #1

Julie of the Wolves
by Jean Craighead George

Dear Mrs. George,

I am writing to you because we have to enter a contest in my English class and this was the one my teacher decided that my class should participate in. We were told to write to an author whose book affected us in some way in our lives and I decided to pick a book from my childhood. You guessed it, Julie of the Wolves. This book was the one I read over and over and over again. I always wished that I would one day end up living with a wolf pack; I even ended up drawing one of my own wolf packs and kept a sort of diary for them. …I know.

I first read this book in what I think was the 4th grade and I didn't seem to ever put it down. My favorite character was of course Amaroq, I loved that he was such a great wolf leader and that he accepted a human into his pack. I guess this book also encouraged me to start writing. My first real story was one called Dark Snow, a terribly written story about a wolf named Dark-Snow who lived in a zoo and then got the rest of the animals to mutiny against the evil owner of the zoo.

Your story taught me that sometimes you have to look out for yourself and you may just find help in some truly unexpected places. Although I couldn’t compare myself to any of the characters I really benefit from all of them and their stories. Julie, being a runaway while I was not, taught me that you can be a strong person no matter who you are. The wolves who I was obviously nothing like physically taught me that no matter who the person is you should always be friends with them and help them when they are in need.

I don’t really read this particular book anymore because I think I got a bit of wolf-book overdose and defiantly had to find another genre to read about. I did too. But this book I always look back to because the fact is even though I overloaded my head with these wild canines, I still respect wolves to this day. I didn’t appreciate it then but now I notice that this set of book is based more on reality than many other books I have seen, and that is sometimes something of an amazing feat by an author. Unlike my story Dark Snow (which included an array of talking creatures) you were able to keep Julie of the Wolves true to life and still manage to pull off an amazing book.

I know this all sounds just a bit cheesy to say the least, but I have to cram in 500 plus words and I think I did a pretty good job of it too. But truly I really treasured this book when I was little.

So in conclusion I would like to say thank you for taking time to write Julie of the Wolves (and it's two sequels), I loved them so very much.

-Christine Fetcho

Writing Assighment #4-Final

They sky was a particular shade of gray, you know that soft flat blanket that covers the sky right before it snows. The light that mutes white that barely makes it through that gray and the small tiny fluffs that fall through the air. I love winter, it's quiet and calm, especially when it snows. I hope it doesn't stop- I want a snow storm with lots and lots of snow. Go and sit in front of the fire place with a cup of cocoa, skip work and sleep in. That would be wonderful. I'm sitting on a little wall, one of those nice brick ones that boarders flower beads; well their all kind of dead now but the walls still pretty. It's layered with a thin sheet of snow that is at the moment soaking through the seat of my pants. I'm in the midle oftheforest, so thislittle wall serves no perpose but to mark where vandals have decided to start an illigal garbage dump.Some one drives up, gets outof theircar, waves to me, and drops off a tire. Why do people just dump junk at the side of the road? Maybe they hope to get rid of some emotions when they dump it, trying to purge themselves by getting rid of old things. Its wrong but I don't stop any of them, it's fun to see what they leave behind. There's a chair, a couch, what might have been part of a car engine, computer monitors, pens, boxes of all shapes and sizes, glass bottles, cans, pots and pans, and an endless number of tires, everything people no longer want. I flex my hands, each finder is numb from the cold, I should probably be wearing gloves. Soft purple ones that keep your hands warm, and maybe an extra layer of socks too. The wind suddenly runs past making me shiver, I could almost swear I heard it laugh, just a whisper but a laugh none the less, like a child with a secret. I slide off the wall and walk to the junk pile and pick up a small shining object on the ground. It's a small silver locket in the shape of a heart. Its slightly tarnished, it's probably been here a while. I pry it open and in it are two tiny pictures of a solder and a young girl. The pictures are slightly faded and their style tells me I am correct about the locket being old. I really wonder who these people are, but the people smile silently. I smile back.