cover image Wolf Comes to Town

Wolf Comes to Town

Denis Manton, Dennis Manton. Dutton Books, $13.99 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-525-45281-2

``Do you like scary stories?'' asks the narrator. ``If you don't, then don't go on. Trust me.'' Readers, even the bravest, would be wise to take this statement at face value and return Manton's malignant picture book to the shelf. The wolf of the title is sufficiently big and bad but, unlike the nemesis of, say, Little Red Riding Hood, he never gets a comeuppance. Cast as a shoplifter who disguises himself as a kindly human, the wolf soon worsens his terrible behavior and begins eating small pets. Not long after, the wolf dons a reverend's robes (the tip of his tail pokes out slightly) and attends a party, where a ``very brave'' boy boasts that he's ``not afraid of a mean old, bad old wolf''; the child disappears, and all that is found is the boy's red pants (`` `Little Bernard's little trousers!' Bernard's mother wailed''). Manton renders his scenes in conventional, innocuous pastel hues; his depiction of the wolf, whose fangs and long red tongue emerge from the most innocent of faces, becomes all the more nightmarish. But no more nightmarish than the nihilistic plot, which suggests that no child is safe--ever. Ages 5-8. (May)