Customer Reviews

Wolf! Wolf!

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A brilliant updating of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" with a hip message. John Rocco's illustrations are masterful, every page a work of art. What every children's picture book should be -- thoughtful, expressive, pointed and a feast for the eyes.

Again another story that has been retold and surprisingly done possibly even better than the orignal and with an Asian background! To me, this story is set in China.

The story begins with the wolf who has gotten older, you see he's not as spry as he use to be and now he's taken up gardening. When you plant vegetables, flower or both and somehow lots of weeds also grow! Weeds, weeds, weeds, too many weed among garden where the thoughts going through the wolfs head when he heard, Wolf, Wolf!

Off the wolf slowly ambles in the direction of the sound thinking.... I wonder who this wolf is, only to find a young boy sitting on a rock among his grazing sheep as the villagers run up to help the boy who cried Wolf, Wolf. From here you know the next part of the story, but the ending is really cute and has a very nice and unexpected twist!

I hope you enjoy the tale, moral and the beautiful illustrations as much as I do every time I pick up this book!

Not just another "Boy Who Cried Wolf" story. This one has an aged wolf, barely able to hobble around, who has to plant a garden to have something to eat. When a shepherd boy cries "Wolf!" just to get attention once too often, the elderly wolf decides to work out a deal with him.

John Rocco's rich watercolors place the whole story in China (the wolf wears a red kimono and carries a pleated paper umbrella!), which adds delightful visual appeal to this picture book for ages 4-8.

A bright updating of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"

Three reasons to buy this book: diversity, pro-vegetarian, fable redone.

This retelling of the fable "do not cry wolf" is told with a kinder and broader brushstroke all the way around. It is a quick read, (perfect when multiple bedtime stories are being piled up) and starts out with the elderly wolf trying to manage his weedy garden with great discern.

After hearing a herd boy yell his name "Wolf - Wolf" and realizing the boy is an annoying prankster calling for help and not calling for him, he tries to duck out of sight as the angry townspeople come running up the hill. His gaze quickly turns upon the goats as a better option that his weed filled garden.

The boy is faced with the real wolf and the lesson of yelling and no one coming to help the prankster. The wolf makes the boy BRING a goat to his farm because he is really too old to run after a goat and ( he explains to the boy) no one will believe him again if ALL the goats are still there. So ONE goat really has to go...

The wolf returns to the farm to find that the boy lived up to the bargain AND the goat had eaten all the weeds to reveal a pile of very yummy vegetables. The wolf and the goat become fast friends. THE END

This is worth buying in hardcover and perfect for a kindergarten through second grade classroom. If you are a classroom teacher who likes to present literature that has diverse populations represented you will appreciate the Asian representation of the characters. This is a pro-vegetarian message on how the wolf chooses to eat from his garden rather than slaughter a goat.

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Reviewed by Three Silly Chicks - Readers, Writers, and Reviewers of funny books for kids.


Wolf is old, tired and friendless. He spends his days fighting a losing battle against the weeds in his garden. When he hears a far-off voice calling, "Wolf! Wolf!" he hauls his creaking, cracking joints down the mountain to see if someone is inviting him to share a meal. He arrives to find a boy who should be minding his goats, but prefers playing tricks on the villagers. Wolf, who (surprisingly) doesn't like tricky boys or angry villagers with sticks, sneaks away. When the boy cries, "Wolf! Wolf!" again, Old Wolf treks back to see if another wolf is stealing the goats. Instead he finds more angry villagers. (Dang those angry villagers!) But when the boy tries to trick those townfolk for the third time, it's the boy who gets tricked and Old Wolf who ends up with a friend and a weed-free garden.

In this clever retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, John Rocco weaves a tight story to show that things aren't always as they seem. From the villagers' point of view, events follow the classic tale. The wolf's vantage point offers a much different reality. His behind-the-scenes account of what really happens might make readers rethink other classic tales. Rocco sets his rendition in long-ago China and illustrates it with warm tones and slightly angular lines. This is a well-written, quietly funny book that is perfect to share with any tricky kid who loves a good tale.

This retelling of the boy who cried wolf is beautifully illustrated, with an Asian (it evokes China for me) theme. In the composition of the illustrations, you can clearly see that Rocco has experience as an art director for animated films (he was the art director on Shrek). They are not only beautiful, but present a variety of interesting perspectives (a below-ground-level view that reveals the fish in a stream, a view looking straight down at the boy in a tree and the wolf looking up from below, a scene peeking over the wolf's shoulder as he looks out from his hiding place in a bamboo forest, etc).

The story itself is engaging and well-told, sophisticated enough for older children, yet simple enough for the young ones (2-3).

This book quickly became my 4-year-old son's favorite, replacing every Dr. Seuss book, Dinosaur books, Eric Carle books...

Yesterday at work I had three different patrons ask me for alternate versions Cinderella. How many versions do you want, ask I. As many as you've got, reply they. Oy. While searching and running and running and searching for the myriad of admittedly very interesting picture books out there, I started to think about folktales that span the globe. From Ed Young's, "Lon Po Po" (a Chinese take on Little Red Riding Hood) to "Duffy and the Devil" by Margot Zemach (a book with a "Rumplestiltskin" twist), the world is full of familiar tales. On the flip side of the coin are the stories taken from one culture and put into another for the very first time. Though they haven't the history and mythology of those stories that naturally developed in different settings, such tales can be interesting in their own right. A fine example of this kind of storytelling is John Rocco's take on the classic Boy Who Cried Wolf tale. Set in Japan, "Wolf! Wolf!" offers us arthritic wolves and dumb-as-a-post human boys in a tale that is as droll as it is surprisingly gentle.

An old wolf is long past his young hunting days and tries supporting his empty stomach with a large and lovely garden. Trouble is, he has no way of keeping weeds away from his patch of land and the canine is growing increasingly hungry. One day he happens to hear someone calling him from across the mountain. When he investigates, he sees that it's just a young boy playing a trick on his local villagers. When the boy makes his cry a second time the wolf comes again, but begins to tire of the tricky child. The third time the kid gives a cry the wolf has just about had it. Since his mere appearance (parasol and all) is enough to scare the thoughtless boy up a tree, the crafty creature makes a deal. If the boy ties the plumpest of the goats to a fence post in the wolf's garden, he'll... uh... "spare" the rest of the flock. Sure enough, the boy does as our hero asks, but when he finds that the goat has eaten all the weeds and left the now enormous vegetables untouched, he finds that this new friend may prove more useful than as a quick nosh of double-goat dumplings.

It seems surprisingly logical in retrospect to take the tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf and tell the story from the wolf's point of view. Rather than make this yet another "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" knock-off, though, Rocco's tale makes a kind of perfect sense. When you think about it, when the boy cries, "Wolf! Wolf!", he is, in a way, directly calling the wolf to the flock. This wolf, being just a tad over the hill, goes to the boy because he thinks he may know the person calling him. The story itself obeys the Rule of Three, and it's nice to read something where the child character is a putz and the supposed antihero is the smartie. Of course, a part of me wishes that Rocco had stuck to his guns and allowed the wolf to eat the plump and juicy goat at the story's end. On the other hand, he sets up the happily ever after finale well in advance so that it doesn't feel tacked on when you reach it.

The idea of setting the story in a Japanese setting makes for an interesting read. Not knowing anything whatsoever about the culture of that country, I can't really speak to whether or not the costumes, clothing, and look of the story are accurate. What I can tell you is that Rocco's pictures, for all their cartoonish glee, carry with them a great deal of sophistication. There is, for example, a picture of the wolf soaking his aching feet in the bank of a riverbed that fills the page beautifully. In the water large white koi flit in the dappled beams of sunlight under large lily pads in a calm green sea. In another view the wolf naps in a cherry blossomed glen beside long eared rabbits and light blue butterflies as the sunbeams reflect the dying day. What Rocco has successfully captured in these images are varying qualities of light. He also knows exactly where to place the white space on his pages too (never an easy task). And if you find that you are unfamiliar with Mr. Rocco's work, pick up the nearest "Percy Jackson" book and look at its cover. Seem familiar? There you go. On the website Imagekind Mr. Rocco's work was described as, "incredibly whimsical and filled to the brim with color and fantastic details." There is little need for me to try to say it any better than that.

I once reviewed the children's book, "A Room With a Zoo" by Jules Feiffer and mentioned in the piece that I had never seen a work of fiction for kids really drill home the agony of throwing one's back out. Such a feeling is replicated here in "Wolf! Wolf!" but in this case it's the ache of elderly joints and creaky knees. Grandparents reading this book to their progeny will relate to this most unexpected of protagonists. Altogether, a fine new look at a story we've all heard before. The real joy of this book is that not only does it pair with your standard Boy Who Cried Wolf retellings, it can even be read and enjoyed without having any knowledge of the original tale. Beautifully rendered and written with aplomb.

I was looking for a kid friendly version of, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" for my 4 yr old son so that he could learn the moral of the story. This was so well written and perfect. I would definitely recommend to any parent looking for the same thing I was looking for.

We have Moonpowder already, and it's a favorite with my three year old and any visiting kids--older ones especially. I am so happy to have another one of John Rocco's in our collection. Wolf! Wolf! is sweet and smart, great for kids and adults. The illustrations are stupendous. I will buy this for friends and family whenever a gift is in order.