With a light snow falling outside, two smiling, mug-sipping parents, their daughter and dog are seen through a log-house window. Soon the bundled-up, red-coated girl is heading uphill on her way to school, waving back to her barking dog: "bark! bark! bark!" is shown as handwritten letters floating in the sky. Next up are two juxtaposed "portholes": on the left side a girl (a pointy red triangle with legs) roams the wintery landscape and on the right a pack of wolves does the same. (Yes, this is foreshadowing.) By school's end, the snow has picked up, ominously. The girl heads home and the wolves are on the move, their breath steaming white in the cold.
Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell (Trouble Gum; Another Brother) is an almost wordless story told in watercolors, snowy white paint daubs and scratchy, kinetic pen-and-ink line work reminiscent of Quentin Blake or James Stevenson. The words are mostly howls (wolves), growls (a mad raccoon) and screeches (an owl). When the lost girl meets a lost wolf pup in the woods, the words are "huff huff" and "whine whine." She scoops him up, listens as his "howwll" is answered, and trudges through a vast snowscape to reunite the scared pup with his pack.
Now exhausted, the girl collapses in the snow. As her little dog barks worriedly in the distance, the pack finds her. More howling, more barking, and the girl is rescued by her parents. This heartwarming story is simple but profound in its messages of selflessness and courage, and how we're all in this together, no matter the species. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness