Book Review: The Wolf Tree by John Claude Bemis

The Wolf Tree
by John Claude Bemis
Clockwork Dark

Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN-10: 0-375-85566-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-375-85566-5
Publication Date: August, 2010
List Price: $16.99

Review: Dangerous, fast-paced and terrifying! I read the amazing book The Wolf Tree by John Claude Bemis. The main characters are Ray Cobb, Sally (nicknamed Yote), Nel, Hethy, Quorl, B'hoy (a raven) and Conker. The Wolf Tree is the second book of "The Clockwork Dark series.

Ray, now a full-fledged Rambler, comes back to his hometown to be with his family. He finds out what happened to his family and friends while he was gone. After surprising Ray when he came from the forest coughing loudly, Bradshaw tells everyone about the 'Darkness' that is spreading. He coughs many times, getting louder and wetter until he finally coughs up some blood that lands on Ray's hand. Ray figures out that the 'blood' is an oil that ends up killing Bradshaw. Ray decides to go see the 'Darkness', but Nel makes him take Marisol with him to see it. Ray soon finds out that Gog's machine is making the deadly 'Darkness'. Ray's sister, Sally, makes friends and helps find the Wolf Tree. Conker needs a branch from the tree to repair the broken Nine Pound Hammer and destroy Gog's machine.

I really like this awesome book even though I had not read the first book in the series, The Nine Pound Hammer. I was a bit confused at the beginning of The Wolf Tree. After the first twenty pages, I was less confused. The book doesn't refer back to the first one, but just continues its own story. I like it a lot because it has a huge amount of action and adventure. One action part is when Quorl gets chased by all the other rougarou while he is trying to find the Great Tree to help himself and Sally's father. Books like this totally catch my imagination like when Ray goes into B'hoy's head and sees and hears as if he were the raven. I rate the book an awesome 10 out of 5 stars. I recommend this book to people ages nine (9) or older because the book is somewhat odd and creepy.

Review written by Michael (6th grade student).

We would like to thank Random House for providing a copy of The Wolf Tree for this review.

Have you read The Wolf Tree? How would you rate it?