I've been paging through the very delightful Big Wolf & Little Wolf: The Little Leaf That Wouldn't Fall and wondering just how to fit in a picture book review in my column when I received the current issue of National Geographic and realized I really needed to be talking about this one here and why it matters on multiple levels. Wolves are the topic in Nat Geo again this month, as they have been off and on. The war over killing, then saving and now having successfully saved them turning to kill them again, has been part and parcel of the wolf story in America for quite some time now. And as I've written here before (and here about dogs and wolves and stories) much of how we feel about wolves is wrapped around the stories we've told about them for centuries. The wolf stories are all bad, every single one. We just don't have cute and fuzzy wolf stories and that is part of why I think the Big Wolf & Little Wolf books are so important.
They are also very sweet and lovely to look at.
Betsy reviewed Big Wolf & Little Wolf last fall and nails much of what I liked about it on the head:
Most recently, in has slipped an understated but infinitely charming little series starring two wolves with childlike neuroses. Big Wolf and Little Wolf comes straight from the sunny shores of France and for those parents looking for a new sibling book, this may be one of the less common alternatives out there. One of the sweeter too.
The "sibling" relationship is worked out in the first book and in this second title Nadine Brun-Cosme turns to finding the perfect gift for a friend (in this case a leaf) and also the beauty of a simple act of kindness. The two wolves are dear friends and spend fall and winter studying a nearby tree and its slowly falling leaves. Big Wolf goes through all sorts of peril to climb and get Little Wolf the leaf he wants so desperately and Little Wolf is deeply appreciative. It's about being good friends (or brothers) but mostly it's about taking time to really know the person (or wolf) you care about. And Olivier Tallec's gorgeous pastel pictures (with the wolves wearing mittens and hats this time - way too cute) complement this lyrical story to perfection. It's direct and obvious on one level but also elegant and deep on another. Simply put, there is no talking down to the reader and I think a lot of kids will appreciate that a lot, just as much as they will getting to know these two characters a little better.
But more than all of that - beyond a lovely story that is so pretty to look at - Nadine Brun-Cosme has created nonthreatening wolves. She gives us the stories that lions, tigers and bears have had but wolves have missed out on. It's a simple thing really (and I wonder if Brun-Cosme even thought about it) but can you imagine if we had books like these for the last 200 years? Maybe we wouldn't be so terrified of wolves. Maybe we wouldn't think they were evil. Maybe we wouldn't think they don't deserve to live. Consider this from National Geographic:
After an earlier federal decision to delist Western wolves in 2008, Wyoming essentially defined the animals as varmints, or pests, allowing virtually unlimited shooting and trapping year-round. A resulting lawsuit forced the wildlife service to temporarily put wolves back on the endangered list. (Since then, the service has refused to take them off in Wyoming until that state comes up with a different plan.)
On the one hand, Big Wolf & Little Wolf are just characters in a couple of very well done picture books. But on so many other levels they are quietly revolutionary. Watch a leaf that would not fall, meet a friend who seeks the perfect gift, read about a little wolf who says "That was the most beautiful thing I ever saw." Fall in love with a couple of wolves and be as happy about it as I am.
ETA: Just out of Alaska comes news that the state will be using helicopters to shoot wolves in the Fortymile region near Tok to boost moose & caribou numbers for hunting, "The state wants to cull almost 200 of the estimated 300 wolves that biologists said range in the control area." And also, the Game board has approved for the "buffer zone" around Denali State Park to be opened to trapping so the protected packs on federal land may be trapped if they stray outside the park: " The wolf population is the lowest it has been since 1987, park authorities say. While they don't know for sure why the numbers have plummeted, they say there has been trapping pressure on the animals.
There are about 70 wolves left in the 6-million-acre park."
The safest place for a wolf in Alaska is the Anchorage Zoo, period.
[Photo by Jeff Vanuga from Nat Geo.]
March 8
2010
03:26 PM
As you say, if these stories that recast the traditional bloodthirsty view of wolves had been told over the past 200 years, we might well think and act differently toward wolves.
I think your point here is a nice example of a more general, and very important, point about children's stories that is often overlooked: they have the potential to shape deeply the thinking and character of an entire culture. The stories we read children don't just entertain and help develop the cognitive skill of reading; rather, they help establish a child's picture of the world, and her dispositions to act in the world--in short her character. Viewed in this way, children's literature is extremely powerful. And of course this is not a new insight: it is no accident that most of the ancient human cultures had a set of stories they told each other--and especially children. Story shapes people and binds them together. All the more reason to read GOOD stories to our children (as these wolf books seem to be), and to have them reading good stuff on their own.