Patrick Jennings defies traditional expectations with a story that casts werewolves as the undeniable heroes of a very human—and horrifying—tale set in sixteenth-century France. Laszlo and his parents are shepherds. His parents are also werewolves. Laszlo knows that someday he, too, will be able to change into a wolf at will and run with the wild pack. But if the villagers—or worse, the priest, Père Raoul—find out, they will all be condemned and most likely killed. Then the priest’s servant girl, the orphan Muno, sees Laszlo’s parents transform. Laszlo fears she will tell their secret, but Muno has seen too much cruelty committed by Père Raoul in the name of the Church to confuse Laszlo’s gentle parents with evil. But how long will he and his family be safe? Jennings’s mesmerizing story is based on the Catholic Church’s rampant persecution of individuals considered heretics during the Inquisition. Hundreds of people during that time, he states in his author’s note, were convicted and executed for being werewolves. Jennings’s characterizations of Laszlo’s parents are particularly fine for contrasting the inhumanity of the Church with the compassion, complexity, and humanity of the werewolves. (Ages 10–14)

A family of werewolves faces the human evil of persecution in this tense and spellbinding novel from one of Scholastic Press' favorite authors.

Laszlo Emberek is caught between two worlds: the bucolic life of a shepherd, tending his family's small flock of sheep with his beloved dog, Gizi, and the secret life of his parents, who can "change" into wolves at will. 13-yr-old Laszlo knows his change will come soon. But when his family's secret is discovered by a village girl -- a ward of the evil and corrupt priest, no less -- Laszlo must decide how he wants to live. Can he trust himself to remain compassionately human as other, wilder instincts overcome him? And are humans truly less dangerous than the wolves they hate with such passion?