I taught this book in Summer School English after a pandemic. I was looking for something short and high interest for students who weren't quite thrilled about spending their summer with me. I dug around the library and found just enough copies of this classic. I read it before in junior high and I remembered it well enough to think it would fit the needs of my students. After thumbing back through it I decided to have my students do a thorough examination of the ending, as there are some elements to this story that do not hold up as well in the 21st century as they did at the close of the 20th.

We're about to dig into that conversation. Are the fictional tribe of Yeehats a problematic representation of a culture that was not the author's own? What, if anything, did Jack London know of indigenous people? How would such an ending translate on film in today's culture? Should the ending be changed if this became a movie?

Then we will watch the 2020 film version staring Harrison Ford as John Thornton and discuss the ways the movie changed the ending and why. We will discuss if the new ending caries the symbolism of fire and the dreams of primordial man any further than the original ending.

I love this little book. Yes, there are elements that were racist at the time this book was written that are glaringly problematic now. Even a big black dog named "Nig" was uncomfortable to name aloud for my students. But we shouldn't shy away from literature that has uncomfortable parts. This book may only be just shy of 150 pages, but there's so much to dig into and question and research. Plus, it's a story about a dog, and who doesn't love a good dog book?