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One book, Every Day, One Year

I have been horrible about posting to my book blog, and as a result, I'm going to start a project. Beginning today (October 12th) I am going to post one book blog every day! That's right, 365 days of bibliophile goodness! I'm lucky that I work at an elementary school and that my librarian loves me - plenty of access to short but beautiful books.



You should know by now that I enjoy books with a sense of humor, and today I picked up a cute little twist on a well known classic called "The Wolf Who Cried Boy". Written by Bob Hartman with illustrations by Tim Raglin, its a cute little retelling of (of course) The Boy who Cried Wolf.



First off, I was drawn by the cover art, which looks like a cross stitched sampler. However, I'm not 100% sure why its a cross stitched sampler, since that theme doesn't even appear in the details of the illustrations within, but oh well.



The story follows a young boy wolf who HATES what his mom makes for dinner every night. Lamburgers, sloppy does, chocolate moose - they all pale in comparison to his favorite meal - BOY! His father, completely fed up with the little wolf's ungrateful attitude lets him know that boys are in low supply, since they seem to have wised up and avoid the woods where the wolves could easily pick them up on their way home for supper. But - if the young wolf actually SEES a boy and lets mom or dad wolf know, they will be more than happy to go and catch him.



Here's where the story takes a familar turn - the mischievous little wolf decides to see what will happen if he lies and tells his family he sees a boy in the woods. Of course, mom and dad wolf come running - and not only is the little wolf delighted to fool them, but dinner is ruined and he gets to eat junk food for supper instead! He tries it again, and it works again! But then, father hears the little wolf bragging about his tricks, and decides to ignore him the next day.



Sure enough, the wolf really does see a boy on the following day. Actually, he sees a whole BUNCH of Boy Scouts. He cries "BOY!" but no one listens. From then on, he eats his supper without complaint, and that's why boys lived happily ever after.



Its cute, its short. It has charming illustrations - right down to the wolf hair bun on the top of mama wolf's head. I could see this working at home for a fun bedtime story (especially for boys) or in the classroom as a way to teach theme and variation, or as part of a writing prompt (retell a fairy tale your own way!).



You can check it out here:

At Borders:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=0399235787



At Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Who-Cried-Boy/dp/0142401595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255369667&sr=8-1

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