Product Description

A wickedly funny book from one of the most exciting new talents around. Herb has to think fast to outwit two very unsavoury wolves that escape from his bedtime story to gobble him up. He enlists the help of the Fairy Godmother with disastrous but hilarious results!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1330959 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From Amazon.com
There's nothing Herb likes better just before bed than a good, scary wolf story, the scarier and hairier the better. But each night he says to his mom, "Don't forget to take that book with you!" Herb's mother thinks that storybook wolves are not at all dangerous, but Herb doesn't want to take any chances. And then one night the unthinkable happens. One of the wolf books is accidentally left behind. And now two wolves have emerged from the storybook, hungry for a meal of little boy. Can Herb outwit the wily wolves? And what about the cantankerous witch who sneaks out of another book while Herb's not looking? With a bit of borrowed Jell-O and the help of a few other fairy-tale characters shaken out of the books by a desperate Herb, he just might make it.

Lauren Child, brilliant creator of Clarice Bean, That's Me and I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato, taps into shadowy childhood fears--and vanquishes them with wit and imagination. Her clever collages use rough-cut paper and fabric patterns to fabulous effect. (Ages 6 to 10) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly
Herb loves his Little Red Riding Hood picture book, with its lupine villain and its back-cover ad for "The Little Fierce Wolf and the Three Pink Piglets." He also prefers to keep the book at a distance, "Because there's a wolf in it, of course." One night, after his mother mistakenly leaves it on his bedside table, Herb smells wolf breath and hears "a deep rumbling sound... like the rumbling of a very hungry tummy." He flicks on the lamp and sees his two storybook wolves licking their chops. Herb grabs a fairy-tale treasury, flips to a picture of a fairy godmother "and shook it until she tumbled out of the book and onto the floor." With the godmother's help, the wolves are banished. Despite the tense situations, Child keeps the mood light with brightly patterned cut paper and collage elements like sequins and feathers. She alleviates dark areas with ample negative space and with backdrops of pale pink and robin's-egg blue. Her mock-threatening wolves have ridiculous pointy noses, prickly fur and incongruous coats and ties. The chatty narrative is not as effective here as it is in Child's Clarice Bean series; it reads a bit like an ad-lib, with too many twists and turns. Yet Child succeeds in dramatizing ambivalence to scary books, which provide excitement but harbor nightmarish creatures in their pages. Ages 4-8.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-Despite its eye-popping visual whimsy, this offering misses the mark on several fronts. Herb has a phobia about the wolves that populate his bedtime stories. His mother always takes the books away with her at night so the wolves that live inside it won't bother him while he sleeps. But one night she forgets, and Herb's worst fears are confirmed when two wolves materialize in his room, leading a parade of stock fairy-tale characters behind them. It doesn't take long for the Fairy Godmother to send Little Wolf off to the ball wearing Cinderella's dress and to turn Big Wolf into a caterpillar. After that, none of Herb's storybook plotlines are ever the same again. (Imagine a "tiny caterpillar trying with all his might to terrify a little girl in a red coat.") The story does a lot of meandering and while Child was obviously trying to make it zany and fun, it is ultimately just cluttered and directionless. However, her artwork is undeniably magnetic. Lively collages incorporate feathers, fabric samples, and wood grain, adding depth and variety to Herb's otherwise two-dimensional universe. The artist employs numerous typefaces and varies the size, shape, and orientation of the text to complement the twists and turns of the story. While many children will be caught up in the superlative artwork and might not mind the lack of a good story, this is not a happily ever after selection.

Catherine T. Quattlebaum, DeKalb County Public Library, Atlanta, GA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.