Wolf! Wolf! (review)

A stiff old wolf, trying to dig the pesty weeds out of his garden, distantly hears a cry of "Wolf!" Hoping the shout comes from a friend with dinner, he discovers the source is actually a playful boy with a herd of tasty goats and a hunger for attention, and the wolf sees an opportunity. When the villagers finally stop running at the boy's yells, the wolf makes a deal with the boy for a plump goat; the goat proves so useful at eating the weeds out of the wolf's garden that the two wind up as friends instead of dinner and diner. While there's humor in the telling and in the notion of the wolf's figurative if not literal toothlessness, the revised version of Aesop's classic fable doesn't manage much in the way of clear plot trajectory or solid twist on its precursor, and it's hard to avoid wondering what will happen to the goat when the growing season ends. Illustrations set the story in an idyllic rural China awash in cherry blossom and decorated with picturesque wildlife. Soft modeling touched with the smoky textures of colored pencil contrasts with crisp outlines, with the personified animals rich in character and the compositions intriguingly varied. Hennessy's The Boy Who Cried Wolf (BCCB 4/06) is a superior revamp of the fable, but this might still amuse kids whose sympathies rest with the wolf more than the boy.