Wolf

Wolf finds that being a wolf is a handicap when it comes to making friends because people seem always angry at him, and he wonders if he will ever find a friendly face.

PreSchool-Grade 2. When a disarming but unkempt wolf sets out to make some new friends, he encounters fear and prejudice at every turn of the page. Only when he finally meets someone who smiles at him?another wolf?are his detractors suitably chastened and ultimately won over. Fanelli's fanciful collages engage readers and invite closer examination, while setting an appropriately playful tone for Wolf's misadventures. Inventive page design and the interplay of color and texture enhance and amplify the narrative. Hand-stamped letters form the text and become part of the design. While the text itself seems at first stiff and unrhythmic, when read aloud with exaggerated naivete, it suits the earnestness of the story to a tee. Such simple, unadorned language and dynamic, unfettered design are the strengths of this quirky and endearing picture book, elevating it above the didactic and the mundane. A well-choreographed production for one-on-one sharing.?Marcia Hupp, Mamaroneck Public Library, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Fanelli (My Map Book, 1995, etc.) turns the idea of the wolf at the door on its head in this offbeat story. Wolf goes to town to make some friends, but everyone is frightened of him, even when he puts on a mask. Discouraged, he wanders toward home, encounters a girl wolf (you can tell by her fur bows), and pours out all his troubles. The townspeople who were chasing him see the error of their ways, and everyone joins in a picnic with a family of wolves in the forest. Fanelli's art is characteristically quirky: bits of advertising and newsprint collage, scribbled line, matte color, and squiggly-type design. Not everyone will be enchanted; this is mostly for those who already find Fanelli's eccentricities winning. (Picture book. 4- 8) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 4^-8. One sunny day, wolf decides to take a stroll into the nearby city to make some new friends. Poor animal--despite his friendly overtures and large-hearted efforts to help the people he encounters, he is rebuffed, again and again. At last, after many misadventures, he begins trudging back to his lonely home. On the way, he finally meets a friend. Yes, the ending is predictable, and the adventure is episodic. But Fanelli's art is absolutely arresting, the naive style outrageously inventive and quirky. Wolf himself is little more than a childlike scribble, but the world he inhabits is constructed of a wacky collection of collage images cut from maps, newspapers (many printed in foreign languages), and a wonderful farrago of found paper objects. Kids who enjoy the offbeat will be glad to call this wolf "friend." Michael Cart