Let's Play In The Forest While The Wolf Is Not Around
PreSchool-Grade 1–One by one, a group of animals assembles in the woods, repeating the titular exclamation, then asking, Wolf, are you there? The left side of each spread depicts the growing number of creatures cavorting among the tree trunks, engaged in fun and games, while the facing pages show the wolf responding to each one, describing his actions, e.g., I am putting on my socks….I am putting on my jacket…. At the beginning of the story, the small wolf is in the background but, with every inquiry, he appears larger, until his large face fills the page. Once he finishes dressing, he shouts, …I am very hungry! And I'm going to eat…, leaving the animals quaking with fear. The tension is broken as he sits down to his mother's pancakes before heading off to school. The artwork was created on digital prints using graphite pencil. The pages are clean, focusing attention on the simply drawn but wildly expressive animals. The effect is very pleasing. The story, based on a traditional French and Latin-American song, is fun to read aloud since each page includes the repeated chant. A surefire storytime pleaser and an ideal choice for dialogic reading.–Linda Zeilstra Sawyer, Skokie Public Library, ILCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.