اینگرید و گرگ

by André Alexis, نسرین وکیلی (translator), پارسا مهین پور (translator)

Like all of us, Ingrid wants to belong, especially to a family. Now, she does have parents whom she loves very much, but she has a sense that there is more to her past than she’s been told. When the opportunity presents itself for her to visit Hungary, Ingrid takes it despite her parents’ objections.
What she finds in the old country is enchanting, gorgeous, and terrifying. Her legacy is nothing like she expected. It is a creature that is, by turns, loving and vicious. It is a wolf.
Ingrid realizes that she is the caretaker of her unusual inheritance, like it or not.
Award-winning author André Alexis delivers his storytelling skills to a new generation of readers in this, his first children’s book.

Genres: Audiobook, Canada, Young Adult, Childrens

168 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 2005

About the author

André Alexis was born in Trinidad and grew up in Canada. His most recent novel, Fifteen Dogs, won the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His other books include Pastoral (nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize), Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid & the Wolf, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa and Lambton, Kent and Other Vistas: A Play.

Reviews

[Fateme H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

این‌قدر از اسمش و خلاصه‌ش و همه‌چی‌ش خوشم اومده بود که ازش انتظار یه شاهکار داشتم.
یه کتاب معمولی بود. یه جاهایی داستان خیلی تند می‌شد انگار که یکی داره نویسنده رو دنبال می‌کنه.
یه فضایی شبیه قصه‌های پریان داشت. همون حس رو. از اینش خوشم اومد.
فقط آخرش نفهمیدم، قرار بود مادربزرگه سه تا آزمون داشته باشه، من فقط دو تا رو متوجه شدم. اولی غذا خوردنه بود؟ یا خواب دیدن؟ هیچ‌کدوم شبیه آزمون نبودن.
در کل خیلییی هم ازش خوشم نیومد. ویرایشش هم یه جاهایی واقعا ایراد داشت به نظرم. ترجمه‌ش هم بعضی جاها به دلم ننشست.

[Phyllis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sweet fable about an 11-year-old girl named Ingrid. Her family lives in Toronto and is not well off, and Ingrid is having a hard time with a snobbish girl in her class at school. Then one spring, a letter arrives from the Hungarian grandmother she has never met, inviting her to spend the summer.

Although Ingrid's dad Sandor is a gardener and her mother Krysztina is a housekeeper, her grandmother is none other than the Countess Liliane Montesquieu von Puffdorf di Turbino de la Louve des Balazs! In her grandmother's castle, Ingrid either will or will not turn out to be a true Balazs, as she learns the differences between kindness and nobility, how to be just the right amount of selfish, and whether one hopes or guesses or knows or just feels when it is right to keep a promise to a wolf.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very perceptive character driven tale for middle readers plus.
Eleven year old Ingrid travels alone to Budapest to meet the grandmother she has never known due to a falling out between her dad and his mother, Countess Liliane. More a fable and a fantasy wherein a wolf, Gabor befriends Ingrid and becomes her shadow and protector, this story explores the core of what a family is, forgiveness, self realization, kindness and love. Liliane summons her parents and the family gets their grievances aired and mostly resolved.
It is a different Ingrid who travels back to Toronto with her parents and Gabor (you wonder how he could travel on a plane? Clever solution, you must read to find out!)
An engaging narrative, good pacing and most of all, storytelling.

[Afrooz Arzehgar · Rating 3 out of 5]

یک داستان معمولی با کمی تم فانتزی خیالی توی دنیای نوجوانان، بدک نبود.

[Amir · Rating 3 out of 5]

نام و طرح جلدش بود که جذبم کرد. جزء داستان‌های خوب نوجوانی بود که خوانده‌ام. فانتزی‌اش، که پهلو به پهلو قصه‌های پریان می‌زد، در لحظاتی فوق‌العاده بود اما در کلیت چنین نمی‌ماند. در هر حال حتماً به یکبار خواندنش می‌ارزد.‏

[Dianne Landry · Rating 3 out of 5]

An okay YA book

[Randy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book because I was reading Fifteen Dogs, by the same author. I thought it might be interesting to see how he wrote for a younger audience. How interesting it has been to see similar themes pop up in this book as in the more recent Giller prize winning novel. There are animals that talk, the most significant one being a wolf.

I like how the author has taken elements of old world tales and woven them together into a story that asks us to rethink things. In this case, he is asking us to rethink the importance of family, of where home is, and as Ingrid learns to become more of herself, we also must ask ourselves about our true nature.

This question must be deep in the author's mind, as this is part of Fifteen Dogs as well.

I liked this book. The tone in which he writes is filled with longing. Was it the longing of the wolf? Was it the longing of Sandor? Was it Ingrid's? Each character longs for something in this deceptively simple tale.

[Parisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

برای من که "زنانی که با گرگ ها می دوند" را به تازگی خوانده بودم، داستان این حس را به وجود می آورد که باید در جستجوی کهن الگوها و نشانه ها باشم. رازهایی که رمزگشایی نشدند و زود از آنها رد شدم. امیدوارم وقت بگذارم و نقدهایی که درباره اش نوشته شده است را بخوانم.

[The Master · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. That about sums it up.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! It was mysterious, hard to put down and it makes you ask questions.

[Macklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is really weird. Nothing is really explained. Everything just happens.

[Melissa Mossing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong young female standing up for herself and intentions. It was very well done.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars... I think.

I liked this, but it felt a bit uncomfortable as a genre at times... And I'm not sure if it added to or took away from the overall experience. Magical realism often hits me this way, though, I think. This was very much balance between middle grade fiction and fairy/folk tale. There was a cadence and remoteness of the folk tale and the magic and archetypes all set in old-world European royalty, but then there were very modern (Canadian, but I'm not sure there's any necessary difference between American/Canadian here) considerations of an 11-year-old looking at a boring summer.

I think I really liked it. It was compelling and it made me think and wonder and consider how the story was told. That can't be bad, right?

[Lana Kamennof-sine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andre Alexis is a talented writer who manages to convey a sense of longing for self identity that can only be resolved through an understanding of where one's history began. This book follows 11 year old Ingrid as she deals with a school bully, and as she discovers her family's history when she's rather authoritatively ordered to visit her grandmother, a Countess in Hungary, discouraged from doing so by her parents, but who is compelled by her curiousity to push for the visit. There are familial rites of passage to be completed. Found the character of Laszlo & Gabor particularly of interest.

[Edwina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a brilliant little book. It had a good flow, just enough description, the right amount of action. Awesome characters.

I'm not sure I am thrilled with the ending, but I couldn't do better, so I'll leave it alone.

Would be a great read aloud for middle school I think.

[Saba Mirzabagherian · Rating 2 out of 5]

شاید چون دارم بزرگ می‌شم و دیگه کتاب نوجوان مال من نیست،
نمی‌تونم از کتاب‌های جدید در قسمت رمان نوجوان نشر افق لذت ببرم. نه تنها به نظرم خوب نیستند بلکه وقتی می‌بینم مثلا کتابی که ازش خوشم نمیاد جایزه‌ی لاکپشت پرنده گرفته بیشتر ناراحت می‌شم.انگار اینا همش مشکل منه.
نمی‌دونم.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal fairy tale set in Parkdale and beyond and wonderful for both children and adults. I loved this.

[Ranj · Rating 3 out of 5]

واسه نوجوانان خوبه چون اونها همیشه تو این جور رویاها زندگی می کنند. کتاب یه جور دعوت به سنت شکنی هم بود.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very unique story about the bond between a young girl and a wolf. Suited for upper elementary to middle grade. Those who enjoy fantasy and animal stories might enjoy it.

[Armita Kh. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt like a bit childish for me. But I sure did enjoy it. Maybe a few years ago, I would have liked it much more. Felt like a fairytale.

[Erfan]

بی سر و ته، واقعا بی سر و ته

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25

[Zeinab · Rating 5 out of 5]

میتونم بگم جالب ترین و جذاب ترین رمان کوتاهی که خوندم✨

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

A retelling/variation of Little Red Riding Hood. Definitely a children's story, but well written.

I picked this up after reading Fifteen Dogs by the same author. Similar themes - sentient dogs /wolf who never the less remain essentially a dog or wolf.

[Karyn Huenemann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A modern fable, set in Toronto and Hungary. Young Ingrid’s family lives in semi-poverty—both parents work as servants to richer Torontonians—but when she turns 11, she is contacted by her grandmother, a countess who wants Ingrid to come “home” to her. Within the realism of familial discord, Ingrid’s own story is archetypal: she must pass three challenges, as all Balazs children have in the past, to prove she is of their “noble” bloodlines, and worthy to inherit the family legacy. The third challenge involves a labyrinth with a wolf in lieu of the minotaur, beneath the castle foundations. Ingrid’s simplicity and honour—two characteristics she has inherited from her egalitarian father as well as imbibed from the more humble Canadian setting—help her to not only navigate the maze, but ultimately to release the wolf, who becomes her life-long protector. In bringing Gabor the wolf home to Canada, caring for him, and learning how to function in society so that he does not threaten those around her, Ingrid grows into a mature, self-assured young woman. This is truly a coming-of-age story with a difference; would that we all had a castle in Hungary to inherit, noble blood to support us, and a wolf-guard to protect and love us throughout our lives. But the lessons Ingrid learns are the same as any young girl entering adolescence, and readers will love the blend of fairy tale and realism that Alexis gives us.

[Lucile Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

197. Ingrid and the Wolf by Andre Alexis
This is the best thing that I have read by this author, even though I am not usually fond of him or fantasy. Ingrid and her parents are living in Toronto and are estranged from her wealthy European grandmother, who has never seen Ingrid. When an invitation for Ingrid to visit arrives, they are all hesitant, but Ingrid prevails and sets off to her grandmother’s castle in Hungary, where she finds that her parents had eloped and were disowned before they went to Canada. Ingrid is sent on the coming of age mission in the cellars of the castle and meets a wolf, Gabor, who is part of the test. Unlike the other Balzacs who have gone through this journey, she returns to see the wolf, who demand to live with her family, although he will lose his immortality. And of course, the grandmother and the parents are reconciled. This book would be great for 10-12 year olds who are into fantasy, and was a pleasant surprise after some other Alexis works.

[Katlin]

This is one of those REALLY weird books, that you read and wonder why people are so messed up. I sorta liked it I guess. In a confusing sort of way...