101 Books, Number 12

Favorite Books Throughout My Life

 

what a 1st printing looks like,
sans its simple brown dust jacket

12: The Call of the Wild, 1903, by Jack London (1876–1916)

It really was a stroke of luck

When I met London’s dog—that Buck.

It was a new anthology

For middle school that greeted me

When I returned in ’82

To teach again (I wasn’t through!).

And, yes, that book—Call of the Wild,

I had not read since, as a child,

I read it in a comic book,

And that was all—the only look

I’d given it till ’82.

So what was I supposed to do?

I dived right in—began to swim.

Of London? I learned much of him.

And soon I was a maniac,

Pursing everything re: Jack

And his most famous doggy tale.

Oh, I was younger then—and hale—

And headed to the Yukon—twice!—

Against some wiser, calm advice.

I hiked the trails; I saw the sites;

Jack London ate my days and nights.

I fell into the awesome sway

Of a professor*—what a day

When Earle found room beneath his wing

For me (who hardly knew a thing).

A decade passed. I wrote some books.**

And then I felt the London hooks,

Well, loosen—just a little bit.

And Mary Shelley? My new hit.

I can’t forget the fun and luck

I had those days when I met Buck!

*Prof. Earle C. Labor—the principal London scholar in the world.

**The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, with an Illustrated Reader’s Companion, ed. Daniel Dyer (University of Okla Press, 1995); Jack London: A Biography (Scholastic Press, 1997)