Tristan Bancks' "Raised by Wolves" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

About the author

Tristan Bancks is a children’s author who has also worked in acting and filmmaking. His books include Two Wolves, The Fall, Detention and Scar Town. Two Wolves was the winner, of the KOALA & YABBA Children’s Choice Awards and an Honour Book for the Children’s Book Council of Australia in 2014. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literature Awards. Detention won the YABBA & KOALA Children’s Choice Award, it was a 2020 CBCA Book of the Year Younger Readers Notable Book and was on both the Australian Book Industry Awards Shortlist NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Shortlist. Scar Town was named the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year for Younger Readers in 2024. 

Brief description of Raised by Wolves

Twelve year old Olive is at high school while Ben, her older brother, is soon to graduate from the Police Academy. She remembers far too clearly that time five years ago when she and her family were on the run from the police, a story that is told in the novel, Two Wolves. Her father was a delinquent adult and a thief in Two Wolves and is still on the run. Even now, Olive checks the apartment with a knife in her hand when she gets home from school to where she and her mother live, scared her father may have returned. So when she sees her fugitive father, Ray Silver, outside her school she is shocked. She is also desperate to know if he loves her, despite all the pain and anxiety he caused her when she was little. She intervenes to help him when she sees him being beaten up, has a conversation with him and offers to help cover his debts with some of the money he stole, as she knows her mother has it stored in the roof. She heads home carefully checking he is not following. But then her father turns up, says he loves her and wants to come inside. Olive is twelve and confused. Should she listen to her mum who warned her never to let his father in if he turned up at the door or should she listen to the man who says he loves her and seems changed. Olive makes a bad choice and lets him in. Bancks says in his Author’s Note this chapter was the first scene that he imagined for the book and it is Olive’s decision which sets the subsequent frenetic action in motion. Her father takes the money, pushes her away and runs again. Olive is devastated and furious with herself for being tricked by him. Follow him is her thought. She runs out after him into the night. What follows is eight hours of non-stop action as first Olive and then later Ben, try to find their father. As they pursue him they wrestle with each other and their own emotions with whether to punish him, just get the money back or let him escape again and in the process they came to better understand their own identities and values and their bond as siblings. It’s a powerful tale in equal parts exhausting and confusing, with some violence but with a steely determination and a strong sense of right and wrong from its young protagonist that has a compelling conclusion that will create real discussion in the classroom. 

Distinctive features of Raised by Wolves

• A cover that captures the mystery, energy and the thrill of the novel and will draw students in to the story
• An epigraph that plunges the reader into a consideration of the multitudes that lie within us, that vast range of human experiences and behaviours we can access
• A story that showcases how humans deal with loyalty, betrayal, trust and forgiveness and a search for identity
• The novel has a pace and excitement that will hook the reader from the first page with its gripping family encounter
• A compressed time frame that starts with a frantic race with Olive at school at 3.07pm and ends nearly eight hours later with Olive and Ben at the airport terminal just before midnight and the arrest of their father. A final instalment 21 months later inside and outside a court room brings closure and solidarity to the family
• Vivid scenes full of threat, tension and emotion occur outside school, in an apartment, on rail tracks, in the bush, in cars, at wreckers and at an airport terminal, as cliffhanger scenes whizz past the reader
• Characterisation is a hallmark of Bancks’ fiction and siblings Olive and Ben Silver have a lot to contend with as their fugitive father re-enters their lives and they discover his other family and they battle with their conflicting emotions about their father
• Hard choices and ethical decisions are required by both the young protagonist and her older brother as their determination and sense of right and wrong is challenged and strengthened.

Ways to use Raised by Wolves in the classroom

There are a variety of teaching possibilities available with Raised By Wolves including a single novel close study of fiction, a two book close study, a four book author study or a genre study as the novel  contains so  many elements of the thriller genre or detective story to explore and discuss. See my reviews of Scar Town and Detention on the Five Senses blog for more ideas on Tristan Bancks’ novels. The activities below consider a two book study of both original novel Two Wolves and the sequel Raised By Wolves.

A two book study

Distribute fifteen copies of both books. Half the students could read Two Wolves and the other half read Raised by Wolves and then swap over and ask students to rate the novel they liked the best. What follows are some ideas that deal with the original book and the sequel but many of the activities could be adjusted to fit a single close study for Raised By Wolves. A brief précis of Two Wolves will aid you in deciding what approach you want to take.

Two Wolves starts with a police force visit when seven year old Olive and her brother, thirteen year old Ben are at home. The police want to know where their parents are and search the house and then leave to find them. The parents, Ray and April arrive home soon after and bundle the kids into the car saying they are taking them for a ‘holiday’ at Ben’s grandfather’s empty cabin in the bush. Ben tries to work out what has happened and while deeply scared of his father, keeps asking questions. He keeps a note book which his father reads and is enraged by, as Ben has started to work out his father has stolen a huge amount of money. The children are left alone by their parents at the cabin and Ben plans to escape but Ray and April return, only for all the family needing to escape as the police descend on the cabin. Both Ben and Olive are lost in the bush for days and Ben finally carries his exhausted sister back to the cabin. More plot twists and turns eventuate until a year later there is a final physical and moral confrontation in the bush between Ben and his father over the stolen money. Ben has found a principled and physical resilience as he supports his mother and sister and settles his own ethical dilemma as he feeds the right wolf from the novel’s epigraph.

General activities for the two books

Ask students to compare the two covers looking for similarities and differences. They should consider images, colour scheme, typeface and the atmosphere and mood created by the cover. Look at the two titles and discuss the similarities and differences.

Consider the purpose and impact of the different epigraphs 

Epigraphs are always a valuable way in to a story. Introduce epigraphs to the class as any short quotation or phrase that the author deliberately places at the start of their work to set a mood or a theme or to suggest the concepts underlying the work. 

In Two Wolves the epigraph Bancks has chosen has also supplied the title. He selects the story of an elder and two wolves, a meme of legendary status often attributed to First Nations American culture but having a wide use in literature when people want to consider the inner conflict in humans, their battle between good and evil,  or for example, between bad human attributes and experiences: pride, envy, jealousy, greed, guilt and self-pity, and good attributes: kindness, hope, love, service, truth and humility.

In Raised By Wolves Bancks chooses the work of a noted American philosopher and writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and draws the reader’s attention to the battle within us again, and stresses the importance of what lies within us, what we are capable of (our values and morality and capacity for empathy ) in comparison to what we have experienced before and what lies for us in the future.

Group task: Ask students to predict what might occur in the novels based on the covers and the epigraphs.

Compare and contrast the two novels

Task: In groups ask students to fill in the table below (some entries have been started) and to add other categories that could be compared.

The characterisation of Ben and Olive in the two books

In Two Wolves Olive is seven and Ben is thirteen. Care and antagonism are balanced in their sibling relationship and they share a delinquent parent and a mother conflicted over keeping the family together and acknowledging the criminality of her husband. In an interview with Good Reading Magazine Bancks writes of Ben’s thoughtfulness and Olive’s fire and the way he tries to protect his younger sister.

In Raised by Wolves Olive is 12 and Ben is eighteen. He still tries to keep her safe and talk sense into her and Ben has her back, even though he can’t control her. Bancks says Raised by Wolves was written in response to school students’ inquires about what happened to Olive, questions about whether the dad gets punished for what he did and whether Ben gets to become a cop. He delivers on all those questions that students raised with him.

Group Task: In groups create a profile for each character in each book. Also consider how much agency that is their development of an identity and sense of belonging and the power they have to fulfil their potential, and how that increases in Raised By Wolves. 

Listen to the author 

In an interview for Good Reading Magazine, Bancks explains what he hopes readers experience when the read the novel:

I hope they lean in. I hope they can’t help but want to know what happens next. I hope they care about the characters and relate to some of the thoughts the characters have and the actions they take. Because even though Olive and Ben are in a terrible situation with some diabolical people, I hope the characters feel authentic and flawed and honest and that they make readers wonder, ‘What would I do if that happened to me?’

Ask students to discuss in groups the choices both Ben and Olive make in both books and how they would answer the question ‘What would I do if that happened to me?’

Teaching resources 

One of the best things about Tristan Bancks books are the excellent teaching resources provided. He really is a great friend to teachers and students. There are no Raised by Wolves resources as yet published, but look out for them. Two Wolves has excellent and extensive resources available at https://www.tristanbancks.com/2016/02/750.html

There is a terrific book trailer at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36e5BeuTIgY

A newsreader reads out an incident of missing children and the parents needing to be questioned by police. It would make a wonderful introduction to the novel for students to hook them into wanting to read the novel. There is also a Reading Australia unit by Claire Gluskie available at https://readingaustralia.com.au/books/two-wolves/

In 2018 BANG! Academy of Performing Arts, adapted Two Wolves for the stage  by combining physical theatre, visual effects and an engineered soundscape. The five minute trailer would give students some ideas of the how the novel might transfer to the stage. The back projections of the  car ride capture the escape for ‘the holiday’ which turns out to be no such thing. https://www.bangacademyofperformingarts.com/twowolves

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English K-10 syllabus

For Stage 3

Text requirements: novel, Australian author

Concepts: narrative • characterisation

Relevant NSW English K-10 Syllabus content for Stage 3

Understanding and responding to literature

A student analyses representations of ideas in literature through narrative, character, imagery, symbol and connotation, and adapts these representations when creating texts EN3-UARL-01

A student analyses representations of ideas in literature through genre and theme that reflect perspective and context, argument and authority, and adapts these representations when creating texts EN3-UARL-02

Narrative

• Describe how narrative conventions engage the reader through models of behaviour, and apply narrative conventions when creating texts
• Recognise that narratives reflect both personal and common lived experiences and offer models of behaviour, which may be rejected or accepted
• Describe how patterns in narratives set up expectations and notice when those patterns are subverted

Characterisation

• Analyse attributes of character and use similar attributes when creating texts
• Recognise how character archetypes and stereotypes are represented in literature
• Analyse how engagement with characters within and between texts invites enjoyment of literature
• Identify the ways different elements of a text contribute to character development and adapt these elements when creating texts

Theme

• Identify core social, personal and moral messages within and between texts
• Identify and describe messages common to lived experiences that recur in literature and use these representations when creating texts

Perspective and context

• Identify how perspective is made evident through authorial choices
• Explore how perspective is influenced by personal, social and cultural contexts
• Reflect on and explain how personal, social and cultural context is expressed in own texts

Reading comprehension

A student fluently reads and comprehends texts for wide purposes, analysing text structures and language, and by monitoring comprehension EN3-RECOM-01

Reading for interest and wide purposes

• Select, compare and reflect on texts read for personal interest
• Reflect on reading experiences and identify texts and language features that are enjoyable
• Select texts from print or digital sources to gather and organise research on a topic
• Use criteria to determine the accuracy and reliability of sourced information
• Bring subject vocabulary, technical vocabulary, background knowledge and conceptual knowledge to new reading tasks
• Use and compare different texts on similar themes or topics to synthesise ideas or information

For Stage 4

Text requirements: Raised By Wolves is a novel (extended prose) written by an Australian author and includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.

Concepts could include narrative • characterisation • genre

Relevant NSW English K-10 Syllabus content for Stage 4

Reading, viewing and listening to texts

A student uses a range of personal, creative and critical strategies to read texts that are complex in their ideas and construction EN4-RVL-01

Reading, viewing and listening for meaning

• Explore the main ideas and thematic concerns posed by a text for meaning
• Engage with the ways texts contain layers of meaning, or multiple meanings
• Identify and understand that relevant prior knowledge and personal experience enables and enhances understanding when reading, viewing or listening to texts
• Explain personal responses to characters, situations and issues in texts, recognising the role of written, oral or visual language in influencing these personal responses
• Explain how the use of language forms and features in texts might create multiple meanings
• Understand how language use evolves over time and in different places and cultures, and is influenced by technological and social developments

Reading for challenge, interest and enjoyment    

• Read texts selected to challenge thinking, develop interest and promote enjoyment, to prompt a personal response
• Read a variety of texts that present a range of perspectives and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and respond in a range of ways, including sustained written responses where appropriate
• Read texts of interest for sustained periods of time and respond to this reading in a variety of ways
• Use strategies to enhance interest and overcome challenges experienced when reading
• Communicate purposefully with peers in response to texts
• Understand the ways reading helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the world
   

Understanding and responding to texts A

A student analyses how meaning is created through the use of and response to language forms, features and structures EN4-URA-01

Characterisation

• Analyse how engaging characters are constructed in texts through a range of language features and structures, and use these features and structures in own texts
• Describe how characters in texts, including stereotypes, archetypes, flat and rounded, static and dynamic characters represent values and attitudes, and experiment with these in own texts
• Understand how the interactions of characters, such as protagonists and antagonists, might be perceived to represent aspects of human relationships, and experiment with interactions when composing texts

Narrative

• Understand narrative conventions, such as setting, plot and sub-plot, and how they are used to represent events and personally engage the reader, viewer or listener with ideas and values in texts, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Examine how narratives can depict personal and collective identities, values and experiences

Genre 

• Understand how a genre addresses its purpose through patterns of textual elements, such as structure, choice of language, character archetypes and settings, and apply these patterns in own texts

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023) 

Connecting texts: author study