Evil figures in childhood stories--the Wolf, the Giant, the Witch--disclose their secrets in this French import. Through cunning paper-engineering techniques (using flaps, levers and strings), skillfully rendered images, traditional stories and personal dossiers, each villain's history unfolds in the creamy thick pages of this oversized volume. Inside the Villains by Clotilde Perrin is a handsome literary and visual package that invites exploration with the fingers, the eyes and the imagination.
Each of the three sections opens with a first-person narrative by the villain. The wolf starts, "Yes, it's true that I sometimes happen to eat (okay, devour) lost children, little pink piglets, grandmothers and occasionally even baby goats." A gatefold then reveals "More About Me," including "My Strengths," "My Weaknesses," "Games I Like" and "My Library," listing the Wolf's various starring roles. The story of "The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats" appears next, in a three-column layout with generous white space, and then--the pièce de résistance--a full-page hairy wolf shape opens to expose grandma's embroidered nightgown and valentine socks over hairy feet. Other flaps open to show the wolf's stitched-up stomach, his brain with dastardly thoughts labeled "brilliant ideas" and his long snout with pointed teeth, closing around baby goats.
The Giant and the Witch get the same treatment with the stories "Jack and the Beanstalk" and, unexpectedly, "Alyoskha and Baba Yaga," where a Russian witch tries to roast a boy. The witch's attributes come from tales listed in her library section: a dress embellished with lollipops, an apple, a cat hidden in her pocket and a boy in a small cage on her inner skirt. Open the skirt again for further surprises. This is a book that children will likely ask for eagerly (and repeatedly) to continue discovering its mysteries. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer