Wolf Brother is the first book in the series Chronicles of Ancient Darkness written by Michelle Paver and illustrated by Geoff Taylor.
Wolf Brother takes place six thousand years ago during the Middle Stone Age, and tells the story of twelve-year-old Torak, a boy who can talk to wolves.
Paver travelled to the forests of Finland and Norway researching how people lived 6000 years ago, and she also spent time with wolves at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust.
Wolf Brother is followed by Spirit Walker (2005), Soul Eater (2006), Oath Breaker (2008), Ghost Hunter (2009), Viper's Daughter (2020), Skin Taker (2021), and Wolfbane (2022).
Before he dies, he tells Torak to swear an oath to find the Mountain of the World Spirit, in order to kill the bear.
The prophecy states that the Listener, who "talks with silence and fights with air", will offer his heart's blood to the World Spirit and thereby kill the demon-bear.
Fin-Kedinn also reveals that Torak's Fa was killed because he was the foremost enemy of a group of rogue mages, the Soul Eaters, who turned to evil in their determination to rule the clans.
Torak shouts to Wolf in human language, promising that he will one day return for him, before turning to head back into the forest.
Writing for The Guardian, Claire Armitstead called Wolf Brother a "rattling read" and noted that it "has a nicely detailed setting and covers enough reader interests – friendship, adventure – even pets.
[citation needed] The book has been translated into Chinese, Spanish, French, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Japanese, German, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, Hebrew, Finnish, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Hungarian, Latvian, Danish, Indonesian, Romanian, Icelandic, Turkish, Slovenian and Faroese (Faroe Islands).
[citation needed] When Paver was writing the first draft of Wolf Brother in 2004, she did not originally plan it to be a series of books.