The wolf’s eyes were dark, nearly black. It gazed at me for a fraction of a second, the deep eyes seeming too intelligent for a wild animal. As it stared at me, I suddenly thought of Jacob….

—NEW MOON

I might as well confess up front—I’m one of those people: a diehard Jacob fan. Not that I don’t love Edward, mind you, but there’s something accessible and familiar about Jacob that Edward, in all his stone-cold beauty, can’t touch. Jacob doesn’t have Edward’s years of experience or polish. He’s naïve, he’s rash, and he’s delightfully primal. And when we learn the boy is part wolf, he’s irresistible. It’s only natural, that attraction; we humans have a certain fascination with canis lupus that can’t be denied. Look at all the wolves that pop up in our myths and legends throughout the millennia. We can’t get enough of them. As Daniel Wood puts it in his book Wolves, these animals are “mirrors, reflecting the proximity of the primitive in human nature.” No wonder we’re so fascinated with wolves. We see ourselves in them. Wolves, after all, share many of our same characteristics. They’re social, like us. They care for each other and hang out together in communities. They are involved parents, as we would like to believe we are. Wolves share our territory. They are exceptional hunters and are one of the only species besides man who can communicate and work together as a pack. Their howling, as Wood says, is “poetic,  …