With his book Wolves at the Door, Steve Watkins writes a horrific reminder of the effects of war. Painting with historical accuracy, he captures the lives of eleven-year-old Asta, her nine-year-old sister Pieta, and their eventual ten-year-old friend Gerhard. The three are thrust in the midst of the last days of World War II, in the harsh winter of 1944-45 when more than two million people desperately fled the northeastern German province of East Prussia, just weeks ahead of the Soviet Red Army invasion.
The trio of youth are traumatized by the Königsberg bombing and fearful of more planes and more bombs. Although Asta typically follows orders and her sister resists rules, the siblings are forced to depend on their instincts when their mother and grandparents are killed. The war keeps finding them, no matter where they run. Forced to eat tree bark, grass, and even pig slop and scraps, they are the Wolfskinder, the Wolf Children who struggle to survive. Had they not found Gerhard, who has a knife, they may well have starved to death.
With its desperate and dire situation and living conditions where starvation and gangrene from frost bite are common, the book is a difficult one to read, but it stands as a reminder of the terrifying effects of war and the resilience of the human spirit. It also serves to remind us how war often seeks to erase language in an effort to erase a culture and a past.
- Donna