• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

The Teachers’ Guide to accompany Wild Spirits by Rosa Jordon.
Eleven-year-old Danny Ryan and 19-year-old Wendy Marshall think their friendship is only about looking after two baby raccoons that Danny has rescued. But when a bank holdup upsets Wendy so much that she can hardly stand to be around people, she leaves her job as a teller, retreats to a farm, and surrounds herself with injured and orphaned wildlife. Danny, neglected at home and considered weird in a town where other boys are into hunting, finds peace on the farm, too, plus excitement, as he and Wendy adopt ever more exotic animals such as llamas, bobcats, a serval, an ocelot, and a blind lynx.
Over time the two friends develop a bond that goes beyond care of the animals to caring for each other. As it turns out, Wendy rescues not just wildlife but Danny, as well. What’s more, the bank robbers are still at large and still a threat, and Danny, now 14, must act to save Wendy’s life.

Originally a freelance journalist, Rosa Jordan has in the past 15 years published nine books: four non-fiction (two set in Cuba), four juvenile fiction (set in the US South), and Far From Botany Bay, her first novel for adults (set in England, Australia, and the South Pacific.) Whatever the form or geography, Jordan’s writings illuminate landscapes where social and political realities intersect with personal courage and compassion. Jordan grew up in the Florida Everglades, attended university in California and Mexico, and emigrated to Canada in 1980. An environmental and social justice activist, she has been on the board of Earthways Foundation almost 20 years. In that capacity, she facilitated the development of an organic agriculture project in the mountains of Guatemala and a jungle cat reserve in Ecuador’s Chocó rainforest. She and her partner Derek Choukalos live, write, ski, and cycle in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia.

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