From: Steven Engelfried <sengelfried>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:25:11 -0700 (PDT)

I just saw "Woolvs in the Sitee" by Margaret Wild and Anne Spudvilas and was very impressed. It's in picture book format, but definitely for older readers. The story is told (in phonetic spelling) by an orphan boy hiding in fear from the "woolvs" he's sure are coming for him. His family is gone and his city is nearly deserted. He's not talking about literal wolves, but we never learn exactly what it is that he dreads, just that "these woolvs are hatefuls, and hating...They spare no won." The illustrations are amazing, capturing the fear and confusion with darkness and drama with varied textured backgrounds that are as vivid as the central visual figures. The book has an almost tangible atmosphere of dread, but the last three spreads break free as the boy leaves his "mustee basement," says he "will no longer let the woolvs forse me to scrooch" and closes in a dramatic final spread where he faces the reader against a now mostly white background and says: "Joyn me."
 Truly an exciting book to read, with each page turn, and one you want to go back and look closer at as soon as you're finished. Then you notice details like the scribbled black wolves on the endpapers and how two smudged green hand prints can say so much visually.
   
  - Steven Engelfried, Multnomah County Library
    503-988-5206 sengelfried at yahoo.com
   
       

       
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Received on Thu 27 Sep 2007 12:25:11 PM CDT