Wolves Author Emily Gravett By Emily Gravett

WOLVES What do wolves really like to eat? It isn't little girls in red hoods.

Rabbits shouldn't believe what they read in fairy tales, but this book has the facts. (This book follows the National Carroticulum.) Wolves Author Emily Gravett

Wolves is a clever, informative, metafictive, ironic, and quite scary picturebook that managed to do what no other picturebook was able to do so far: it shocked me! A very unexpected and realistic ending, haha :)





English Why did I wait so many years to read this gem? English This text first came to my attention when a Year 1 child came up to me to excitedly tell me about a book where there was a vegetarian wolf who ate a jam sandwich with a rabbit. If this wasn’t going to get attract my curiosity, I don’t know what would. Upon getting my hands on the text I was both surprised and enchanted by its pages due to its beautiful illustrations and interesting narrative.

The text begins with a rabbit checking out a book about wolves from the library and the reader shares this book with the rabbit, with some facts about wolves given on each page. However, the rabbit soon becomes part of the book it’s reading as the two parts of the book fuse when it is found out that rabbits are on the menu for wolves. Gravett provides an amusing and cheery alternative ending to the story for those with a sensitive disposition - our aforementioned tea party.

It would certainly be a useful tool to teach children about the effect of images on text, as many of the pages just show a fact which only when paired with the illustration become injected with emotion.

One of my favourites (so far). English A book within a book Wolves see's Rabbit get a book from the library about wolves which gets all too real when the rabbit meets a tragic end (Unless you follow the alternative ending, then not so tragic).

This is a brave and inventive book. The mixed media approach and scrapbook style layout of the illustrations makes it highly stylised, and I worry a little that the layout of the book is aimed at an older audience than the story, which itself contains some subtle and sly humour. That said it is a fantastic reference for children to see how mixed media can be brought together to make a singular and cohesive piece of work.

A joy to look through and it promotes libraries, just be careful what books you take out.

I would use this book throughout KS1 as I feel its layout makes it a perfect art resource for the older children as well as being a great book for younger children to enjoy hearing and exploring. English I adore Emily Gravett’s humorous picture books. “Wolves” is beautifully illustrated and has a totally different story than most of the picture books I’ve read so far. This is the story of a rabbit who borrows a book about wolves from the library in order to get to know what wolves eat (surprisingly, they do not eat Little Red Riding Hood!). The more the rabbit immerses in the book, the bigger the wolf becomes. Although the storyline is very simple, it is also very funny, with a dash of drama (wolves eat rabbits!), and ends with a rather happy resolution (there is an alternative ending in which wolves are vegetarians  ). I appreciate the trick that Gravett made, namely the fact that the book about wolves is “inside” the book about the rabbit. There is even the secret cover which I managed to discover only after reading the book three times in a row. The illustrations are quite simple, but really beautiful. I like the fact that the drawings of the rabbit and the wolf are combined with the photos of the book about wolves, which makes the story more real and more gripping. This is probably one of my favorite picture books of all-time, because I laughed a lot while reading it. English

Free read Wolves Author Emily Gravett

Wow! Very unusual for a picture book to leave me nervously laughing in a combination of horror and surprise. A large part of the effectiveness of this book is due to the multimedia illustrations - you can see the texture of the cloth cover of a book in one key picture. Another key factor identified by my daughter: painful irony. I loved it, but it's not for everyone - see my I would recommend English هذه قصة أرنب يذهب إلى المكتبة ليقرأ عن الذئاب، هل يفعل ذلك بداعي الفضول المحض، أم تراه يؤمن بضرورة أن يعرف المرء عدوّه؟
نرى في الكتاب تلك المساحة الشاسعة بين المعلومة الواحدة وبين ما تثيره في المخيّلة من صور وانطباعات، مخيّلة كانت بالقوة الكافية لكي تتجسد وتلتهم صاحبها؟
وللقارئ الحساس، هناك نهاية أخرى مثالية ومناسبة للمرهفين؛ هذا ذئب نباتي ولم يأكل الأرنب، وعاش الاثنان بسعادة إلى الأبد! أعتقد بأن الكتاب يسخر من حاجة الكبار لحماية الأطفال من حقائق الحياة؛ من فكرة الموت والفقد والألم. يستحق القراءة مليًا، فهو كتاب مراوغ ومتعدد المستويات رغم بساطته الظاهرة. اقتنيته من أمازون. English Um. I'm not sure whether this little book is supposed to teach kids about wolves or scare the living daylights out of them. These are some pretty creepy wolves. If I'd read this as a kid I would still be sleeping with the lights on... English Most people don’t think of the library as a dangerous place, but in Wolves, Emily Gravett shows that you can never tell what lurks within the pages of a book. Uncluttered pages illustrate an unwary rabbit who is so absorbed in his new library book, a nonfiction book about wolves, he absentmindedly walks into some real trouble. Those readers needing reassurance can take comfort in the author’s promise that “no rabbits were eaten in the making of this book”.

Wolves is really a “sophisticated” picture book. In spite of its appearance, it is not really aimed at the preschool crowd. Although the stated age range for the book is ages 4-8, the book really requires a good understanding of narrative(there are two endings) and the ability to “read between the lines” using clues from the pictures. Wolves also communicates a much different message than most children’s books, even disturbing and subversive titles. Subversive children’s books generally provide child readers with a sense of control and power in a world where their actions are determined by outside authorities. Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is an excellent example of this. Unlike Sendak’s book, though, Gravett’s work does not allow a child to take control. It actually creates a situation where the main character’s, and the child reader’s sense of security and power, is violated.

Wolves is more a work of ironic metafiction than a children’s book, and as such is more likely to be appreciated by older children and adults. And while children have their dark side, the grim humor doesn’t seem particularly age-appropriate for kids just getting the hang of “What’s green and sings”? Younger children may enjoy the illustrations (my son LOVED them) but most will miss out on the irony. However, older children, teens and adults who enjoyed the dark humor and postmodern illustrations in Gaiman and McKean’s Wolves in the Walls will probably get more out of Gravett’s contribution to the growing area of sophisticated picture books.

Review by Kirsten Kowalewski English Unfortunately, I had a very strong negative reaction to this book. I wanted to like it for being interesting and engaging and... fun. I think it is supposed to be fun. We are supposed to chuckle and appreciate. Instead, I was saddened and angered.

Here is the story of a cute little rabbit who decides to read a book about wolves. As he reads through the pages, we turn the pages, and see him caught up in wolf fur (as we learn about wolf fur), surrounded by wolf legs and claws (when we learn about wolf claws), etc. It's as if we are in his imagination. It's a neat concept artistically. Indeed, it won the Kate Greenaway medal in 2005. (Thus the two star award.)

BUT, the whole time I kept thinking... okay, surely we are going to learn some NICE facts about wolves. And, surely we are going to see that wolves are not the horrible, evil, murderous monsters that are portrayed in the rabbit's imagination (and in the illustrations). Surely that will be the moral of this story. Well, no. The surprise ending and the alternate happy ending do nothing to promote a positive view of wolves.

I selected this book from the library a few weeks ago but hadn't got around to reading it yet--I'm a fan of wolves and hoped this would be cute. My timing in actually reading this book is ironic in that, over the weekend, I attended a presentation about wolf rescue. I learned, in depth, what I had already known superficially about wolves and the bad rap they have received for several hundred years. I doubt Emily Gravett has looked into a wolf's eyes, as I did that day. If she did, I am not sure how she could write a book that continues to promote a stereotype so detrimental to one of the most beautiful, sensitive and complex members of the animal kingdom. English