Wolves

P Loves books. Right now he's unusually enthralled by Halloween stories of witches, monsters etc. But wolves have reined as king for a while now. It all started with "Little Red." Its a spin-off of the classic Little Red Riding Hood, but with gorgeous, semi-macabre illustrations where the illustrious cape wearer is a boy that delivers ginger ale. The whole book is brilliant right down to the wolf burping out ol' granny, but the boy's pantry always confused P. It's a typical past era, meat-eater's pantry featuring pig's head's, bunnies and ducks hanging from hooks and mice noshing on large cheese wheels. We went over the dead heads countless times and that page still caught him with each read. I was slightly glad when our renewals were up and we returned it;)

In it's stead came "Wolves" by Emily Gravett. Slightly less gorgeous but much more informative, the book seems to end with the lead character's (a bunny's) death. As the bunny reads a book about wolves within this book, he learns a wolves' typical diet includes... bunnies. And on the page that provides this information the bunny is gone, leaving behind his scratched and torn wolves book. When we got to this page P was horrified. "Where the bunny mama? The wolf eat him? Why his book all scratched? The wolf eat him? Where is he?" I know this is a hot spot for P, and as I silently cursed myself for not flipping through before reading I turned the page to see a note. It was from the author and explained that no bunnies were hurt in the writing of this book, it is a work of fiction. And for more sensitive souls an alternate ending was provided. The two year old didn't understand this, but the next page he did. It showed the ripped up bunny and wolf eating a sandwich collaged out of the book's pieces and described how the bunny was in luck. This wolf was a vegetarian and they shared a jam sandwich and became best friends. I thought P was going to explode with happiness when I read this. Book after book after book has gone against his personal preferences and here was one that validated him. He actually jumped up and down saying "I love this book! It my favorite!! Read it again, mama, read it again!!"