We Are Wolves by Katrina Nannestad
About Katrina Nannestad
Katrina Nannestad is an award-winning Australian author. Her books include We Are Wolves, The Girl Who Brought Mischief, the Travelling Bookshop series, the Girl, the Dog and the Writer series, the Olive of Groves series, the Red Dirt Diaries series, the Lottie Perkins series, and the forthcoming novel Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief. We Are Wolves has been shortlisted in the 2021 CBCA Awards, the 2021 Book Links Awards, and the 2021 Queensland Literary Awards, as well as being longlisted in the 2021 ABIA Awards and winning best designed children’s fiction book at the 2021 ABDA Awards. For further information:
A Quote from Katrina Nannestad
"I am delighted and honoured that We Are Wolves has been shortlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize in the CYA category. This is a wonderful prize that celebrates historical fiction and is a great encouragement those who write it. Historical novels bring history alive for our young readers! "
About We Are Wolves
Sometimes it’s good to be wild. Sometimes you have to be wild.
When the Russian Army marches into East Prussia at the end of the war, the Wolf family must flee. Liesl, Otto and their baby sister Mia find themselves lost and alone, in a blizzard, in the middle of a war zone. Liesl has promised Mama that she will keep her brother and sister safe.
But sometimes, to survive, you have to do bad things. Dangerous things. Wild things.
Sometimes to survive, you must become a wolf.
Quotes from the Judging Panel
“When the German defences start collapsing, towards the end of WWII, the Wolf family flees their home in East Prussia to escape the Russian army. Papa is already missing in action, and soon the three children must leave behind not only their Opa and Oma, but even their mother.”
“Alone, Liesl, Otto and baby Mia learn to live wild, competing with thousands of other displaced war orphans who roam the forests and fringe farmlands of their conquered homeland. Sometimes they steal food and clothing, sometimes they forage, barely surviving by killing and eating any living creature they can find. Old norms, habits and moral standards are stripped away, and Liesl’s constant cry, “we are not wolves” becomes more and more an empty denial that they have become wolves in all but physiognomy.”
“This is a simply and beautifully written, deeply moving account of survival. How much can you endure?”
“It’s also a testing of faith. Who and what can you trust? Can a 12-year-old girl turn her back on the huge propaganda machine of the German Reich?”
“And it’s a debate about identity. How much can you change – and be changed – and still be true to yourself?”
