The great escape by Anh Do

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Wolf Girl 2: Allen and Unwin, 2019. ISBN: 9781760876357. pbk., 206 pgs.
(Age: 8-14) What can't Anh Do do? He is so talented and his books are 'awesome' as my students say.
With Ahn's writing career he has managed to make reading achievable for young reluctant readers. I find reluctant readers have difficulty in reading and don't want to be seen with low level books. Anh Do's books and similar book series like Bad Guys and Dog Man are great to get kids reading. Their illustrations are great and the stories are entertaining.
With the Wolf Girl series Ahn Do has taken a step further and has written a more mature type story that looks like a novel that won't take weeks to finish. His writing style is very easy to read and I kept thinking one of my kids could have written this book but you can see that it's written in this way to get kids reading. This writing style is very smart. I use his books all the time in class to encourage kids who hate reading and have trouble reading. The kids seemed to their peers to be reading their level books which actually gets them reading because they are fun. Wolf Girl 2: The great escape is all about survival, importance of teamwork, love, loyalty, bravery and of course friendship. Gwen the main human character is easily likeable and we read her story and adventures with her family/pack of dogs. Any dog lover will love the friendship Gwen has with her pack. Anh Do has also managed to make something traumatic into a story that is not distressing and very suitable for younger readers.
As soon as I started Wolf Girl 2 I couldn't put it down but I got confused about what was happening at the start because I haven't read the first book so I didn't know the background of what was happening. The book starts with Gwen in the back of a truck and you realise that she was kidnapped from somewhere at the end of book one. Once into the book you could work out the story and what had happened before. I now have a copy of book 1 and will start it shortly, that's how much I enjoyed Wolf Girl 2. Oh and hurry up with book three because I can't wait! The illustrations were great which broke up the amount of writing on a page. This was good to not panic young readers with the length.
If you are looking for a good read for primary school kids look no further, the Wolf Girl series is the book for you.
Maria Komninos

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