She’s lost her last teeth and can no longer hunt.'” “‘Bring this nice rabbit to your grandmother wolf. (The cover above and the illustrations below feature the French text, but I promise an English edition will be available this Fall.) Enjoy! And it’s beautifully-illustrated, as is the entire book.Īnd, on that note, here’s a handful of illustrations, as promised. I can’t bring myself to reveal the twist, but it’s gripping and heart-breaking - and can serve as a wonderful conversation-starter for children about grief and memory and even perspective. The woman dies, just as in the first story the wolf heard from the girl, but she isn’t killed by wolves. On their way home, the wolf hears a different song, one telling the same tale of the young woman, who actually loved wolves and was understood by wolves. The wolf figures he’s done for when her massive father comes home, but the wolf’s mother swoops in to save the day. “You see,” she tells him, “you’re all evil beasts. It’s there that she finishes her song, the wolf listening in horror in the cage. She doesn’t quite finish her song, mind you they’re interrupted by their arrival to her home, where she eventually imprisons the gullible wolf. She leads him to her home, all the while singing a song that tells the tale of her mother, killed by wolves. “She won’t notice if I eat one of the rabbit’s feet.” Soon, the entire rabbit is gone, as he weeps through his gluttony: “Hmm, grandmother wolf does not have sharp eyes,” he reasons. Let us pause here to appreciate the darkly funny moment, right before he meets her, where he sits in sorrow (because he’s ever-so lost) and stuffs himself with the very rabbit he was to deliver to his grandmother. She sweet-talks the wolf into following her. The wolf, however, gets distracted and strays from his path, ending up right in the target of the girl his mother warned him about. “They are vile and cruel and hate wolves,” she tells him. The mother warns the little wolf about the forest of dead wood where the hunter and his daughter live and urges him to avoid it altogether. It’s a story, divided into chapters, that is, at turns, funny and haunting, the tale of a little wolf instructed to head to his grandmother’s house to give her one of the juicy rabbits his mother has recently killed. I’ve got some art from the book to showcase today-I’d love to let the art do the talking-but let me do my best to describe to you what this book offers. The English edition of this story, which turns the classic “Little Red Riding Hood” tale on its head and features a wolf in a red cape, was translated by Jeremy Melloul. Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to see an early copy of a book coming to shelves this Fall from Lion Forge Comics/CubHouse, Amélie Fléchais’s The Little Red Wolf, originally published in French in 2014. He looked to his right, his left, ahead of him,Īnd behind him … the trail had disappeared!” It was then that he remembered his poor hungry grandmother. I personally thought it would be a graphic novel, but no, it’s a picture book.“Exhausted by all the fun, he stopped for a moment. Which can be a good, depending on what you want. Once again, outstanding artwork, but short, short tale! It does have eighty pages, and that is more than, let’s say, thirty, but you’ll see that it reads SUPER fast. The ending is rather abrupt, though understandably so, since there is a sudden twist that is meant to leave the readers shocked and it does do its trick… It really is just a tale to read, enjoy and maybe think about for a couple of minutes, but not one to make you rethink what you know about fairytales.
The same applies to the hunter and the girl. I loved looking at all the little elements that formed the overall illustrations.īecause the story and narration are so short, we do not in fact get to know the little wolf, although we do get a sense of his personality. The story is rather simple and the writing limited, but the style of the artist is awe-inspiring. Perfect story to tell 3 to 5-year-olds on Halloween. Not sweet like the little wolf is, but not too scary either.
A haunting fairy tale for children and adults alike. A young wolf, on a journey to bring his grandmother a rabbit, is charmed by the nice little girl who offers to help him… but nice is not the same as good. Lose yourself in in the dark forests of Amelie Flechais’ spectacular artwork. Genres & Themes: Children’s, Picture Books, Fairytale Retellings
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