Wolfboy

“The moon was full,” writes Harkness (Bug Zoo). The moon also looks like it’s slathered in cream cheese icing—one of the many visual delights in this book created entirely from images of dimensionally modeled clay. The title character is a blue monster with spindly arms and legs, a triangular head and wild orange eyes, and a mouth that seems made for chomping rabbits, who peer up from hiding places in a landscape that puts off a spooky Wallace and Gromit vibe. “Rabbits, rabbits where are you?” the hungry Wolfboy demands as he stands atop a “creaky” oak in a forbidding forest, and jumps between the edges of a craggy ravine overhung with eerie clouds. But while Wolfboy sure seems like an incorrigible predator—one spread frames the long-eared rabbits through enormous teeth—the menace evaporates once the bunnies appear bearing a pie filled with moonberries. Turns out they’re actually good buddies who are used to Wolfboy’s hangry moods. It may be a shaggy-dog story, but the anticlimactic ending doesn’t disappoint—readers will feel like they have a front-row seat to a marvelously imagined and sculpted toy theater. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 3–6. [em]Agent: Adah Nuchi and Rena Rossner, the Deborah Harris Agency. (Feb.) [/em]