Swiss author Gallaz (Rose Blanche
) offers a somber look at stereotyping in this tale of a wolf whose apparent love of music hastens his death. Anne, a rosy-cheeked Swiss girl, wanders into the forest, plays her violin and falls asleep. A search party finds her safe and sound the next morning, but when a policeman notices wolf tracks nearby, a hunt for the creature ensues. In his children's book debut, Arisman's tenebrous illustrations communicate a sense of foreboding with dusky hues and shadowy backgrounds. In one scene, men silhouetted in black pierce the gray forest with their flashlight beams, while a crazed-looking hunter occupies the foreground. Cross-hatching shades adult faces and animal bodies. Anne and the wolf, presumably the only characters free of prejudice, are outlined with a golden aura—a glow that disappears from the wolf after he is killed. "Everyone went to look at it. First Anne saw the paws. They were thin and very fine. They seemed dry and delicate, almost like old leaves.... Then she looked at the head. It seemed sad. The mouth wasn't quite closed. She could see the front teeth." Gallaz's clipped-sentence style at times feels passively stoic even as it works to conjure sympathy for the misunderstood creature. Alluding to other artistic works with negative depictions of wolves (Anne's mother reads her Little Red Riding Hood; the score from Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" progresses as an elegant border atop each text page), this story overstates itself with an almost oppressive bleakness. Ages 10-up. (Oct.)
