Little Wolf's Book of Badness

November 1, 1999
A far cry from some of the wittier fractured fairy tales, Whybrow (A Baby for Grace) paints this picture with broad strokes. In letters sent to his parents, Little Wolf chronicles his sluggish journey to Uncle Bigbad's Cunning College for Brute Beasts in Frettnin Forest. He hopes to learn from his uncle the nine Rules of Badness ("Huff and puff a lot"; "Blow everybody down," etc.) in order to earn his BAD Badge and convince his family that he isn't a "goody-4-paws." Finally, the young wolf reaches his uncle's school, devoid of students ("I am so frightfully frightening, they all fled and flew away!" explains the former educator), and the grouchy beast eventually expels Little Wolf. Befriended by a pack of Cub Scouts, the little fellow is at long last awarded a badge--albeit not the one he left home to earn. The expected fixtures are all here: the uncle unsuccessfully huffs and puffs to try to blow down the scouts' tents and disguises himself as Little Red Riding Hood's granny. Fans of Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series may be amused by some of the bathroom humor (Little Wolf returns from the camp with three cans of baked beans, which Uncle Bigbad greedily devours and which hasten his demise when his proximity to the fire causes him to explode), but much of Pilkey's winning originality is missing here. Ross's understated, childlike black-and-white sketches offer a welcome counter to the obvious text but can't completely bail out this lame spoof. Ages 8-12.

November 1, 1999
Gr 2-4-Little Wolf is altogether too well behaved for his fierce wolf family, so they send him to Cunning College to take badness lessons from his Uncle Bigbad, the nastiest wolf of all. However, Little Wolf's education doesn't turn out the way anyone expects, and the result is the fall-down funny (but never preachy) story of a cheerful nonconformist finding a way to be himself. Written in a style somewhere between A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh and Dav Pilkey's The Adventures of Captain Underpants (Scholastic, 1997), the story owes its humor as much to Ross's line drawings of the irrepressible youngster as to Whybrow's clever narrative, told through Little Wolf's letters home to his family. The book begs to be read aloud: Uncle Bigbad shouts all his lines in capital letters ("GRRRR! BEGONE, VILE BALL OF FLUFF!") and Little Wolf uses deliciously creative nonwords like "skwish," "lipsmackerous," and "frozz." References to "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Three Little Pigs," and the Cub Scouts will engage young readers. So, too, will Little Wolf, who is a wuss by wolf standards but still eats beetles and rabbit rolls, scares a lady at a bus stop, and plays inside a fallen-down chimney because he likes getting dirty. Successful as comedy, fractured fairy tale, and coming-of-age story all in one, Little Wolf's Book of Badness is terrific.-Beth Wright, Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, Williston, VT

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.