Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell
Reviewed by: Brian Wilson
Children
Title: Wolf in the Snow
By: Cordell, Matthew
Published: 2017
Call #: JPicture Corde.M
This poignant, near wordless tale depicts the bond that quickly develops between a brave young girl wearing a Little Red Riding Hood style jacket and a scared wolf cub separated from its pack on a cold, snowy day. With his striking pen and ink with watercolor art, Cordell serves up two linked storylines that merge as we cut back and forth between the huffing, shivering girl walking home from school and the little wolf who falls increasingly behind its elders. When the two characters meet on an unforgettable series of spreads, we see a bond form. And yet, we don’t get a cutesy revelation that the wolf wants to hang with humans. The reader knows, and the girl knows, that she must reunite the frightened animal with its pack. Cordell gives the work the feel of a timeless fable as the kid saves the creature from a variety of dangers, and is then rewarded later by the wolves who come to her aid. His masterful use of double page spreads deepens the tension of the unfolding events. And I love how he puts the girl (holding the cub) and an adult wolf parent in circular frames as they face each other–her eyes wide with terror as the baby wolf howls–they share a connection but nature separates them. This keeps the book from becoming too saccharine; there’s a sense of danger here. The humans in the story look stylized in their oversized coats, but Cordell renders the wolves more realistically, and the effect adds punch. Wolf in the Snow is simply one fantastic book, and will certainly make my list of the very best of 2017.
