A is a child who is afraid of the dark. This fear is not strange to me, as I, too used to be afraid of the dark as a child, and this daughter of mine has inherited my over-active imagination. Even now I am unwilling to watch a horror movie (a real, spine chilling one- not the merely grotesque stuff that passes for horror sometimes!) as my imagination goes into a super-active mode!
She does not go into a dark room by herself, unless there is someone standing outside urging her on to go ahead, and put on the light. Unfortunately, the builders of our house, while setting up electric connections and such, have placed the light switches at the far end of bedrooms, and not even in full view of the door. So if I stand outside, encouraging her to go in on her own and switch on the lights, she cannot see me there. I do not want to crystallise this feeling of fear by insisting on her doing this by herself without the crutch of me standing outside. At the same time, I do not want to convey the message to her that it may be OK to be frightened of the dark, in her own house. So I do not go in with her to switch on the light if it is she who wants something from there.
So her reaction to books with real horror in it (remember her distress on reading 'The Giant's Necklace' by Michael Morpurgo? Reviewed here. ) is a lot of distress. It makes me doubly careful while giving her books in this genre. So when I came across 'The Wolves in the Walls', by master spooky-storyteller Neil Gaiman at the library, that too in a picture book format for younger children, I decided to read it myself. And on reading it, I decided it would be a great book for A to get introduced to this wonderful writer, some of whose books I've dared to venture into myself.
Lucy hears noises in her room at night. She knows what they are. There are wolves in the wall!
"Rats!" says her mother, unconcerned, busy with housework.
"Bats!" says her brother, busy with his school work.
Her father, a tuba player, doesn't even think it worthwhile to give her an explanation.
All of them tell her- "If the wolves come out of the walls, it's all over."
And then, the scraping and scratching noises grow louder and louder, until one night, the wolves DO come out of the walls.
So is it over? Not by a long shot! It is just the beginning. The beginning of courage in Lucy, who, after scampering outside with her family, away from the wolves, realises that her pink pig-puppet has been left behind. And he has to be rescued. Inspite of her fear of the wolves. To her, it is her baby. Not "just a puppet!" as her father puts it.
This is something A could relate to very well, as she loves babies, and has already declared to me that she will marry (boys? yucky creatures!) only because she wants babies!
So what happens next? Does Lucy manage to get into the house and rescue her pink pig-puppet from the clutches of the wolves? And do they manage to drive the wolves out, after all?
A and I read this nail-biting, on-the-edge-of-our-seats story recently, and A loved it. As she rightly put it- "I'm glad I'm not so little anymore, or I would have been really frightened." For the book is the stuff of nightmares. So although it is a picture book that can be read aloud to younger children, maybe 5+, I would still put the appropriate age at 8+.
We visited Neil Gaiman, the writer in this post during CROCUS 2010, on Saffrontree. All the books that I have read by him were spooky to an extent I was not comfortable with introducing to A, knowing her. So when I read through this book, it came to me that here was the perfect book with which to introduce this wonderful writer to her.
And the illustrations! Done in a combination of pen-and-ink sketches, watercolours and actual photographs, Dave McKean has brought the 'spooky' factor alive for us. It has that unmistakeable quality of graphic novels, where sometimes pictures speak more than words. Full page, in dark shades, alternating between hazy and stark, with the text written at strategic points. Dark but funny, realistic yet enchantingly fairy-tale like. A perfect foil for Gaiman's story-telling.
Two pictures struck us as extraordinary- the page on which the wolves come out of the walls- she let out a small scream, the dynamic energy of the wolves running out, with that 'almost heard in your head' baying that can be easily imagined. Another is the page on which the family is huddled outside around a fire- the fire has a very realistic glow in the overlapping strokes of red, yellow and orange that the artist has used. One could almost feel the heat.
A great book for addressing those things that go 'bump' in the night.
Crossposted at Saffrontree.
Edited to add : Entering this for the Reading the world challenge 2011 for A under Great Britain and fiction.
She does not go into a dark room by herself, unless there is someone standing outside urging her on to go ahead, and put on the light. Unfortunately, the builders of our house, while setting up electric connections and such, have placed the light switches at the far end of bedrooms, and not even in full view of the door. So if I stand outside, encouraging her to go in on her own and switch on the lights, she cannot see me there. I do not want to crystallise this feeling of fear by insisting on her doing this by herself without the crutch of me standing outside. At the same time, I do not want to convey the message to her that it may be OK to be frightened of the dark, in her own house. So I do not go in with her to switch on the light if it is she who wants something from there.
So her reaction to books with real horror in it (remember her distress on reading 'The Giant's Necklace' by Michael Morpurgo? Reviewed here. ) is a lot of distress. It makes me doubly careful while giving her books in this genre. So when I came across 'The Wolves in the Walls', by master spooky-storyteller Neil Gaiman at the library, that too in a picture book format for younger children, I decided to read it myself. And on reading it, I decided it would be a great book for A to get introduced to this wonderful writer, some of whose books I've dared to venture into myself.
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| Pic courtesy amazon.co.uk |
The Wolves in the Walls
Written by Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Dave McKean
Published by Bloomsbury Lucy hears noises in her room at night. She knows what they are. There are wolves in the wall!
"Rats!" says her mother, unconcerned, busy with housework.
"Bats!" says her brother, busy with his school work.
Her father, a tuba player, doesn't even think it worthwhile to give her an explanation.
All of them tell her- "If the wolves come out of the walls, it's all over."
And then, the scraping and scratching noises grow louder and louder, until one night, the wolves DO come out of the walls.
So is it over? Not by a long shot! It is just the beginning. The beginning of courage in Lucy, who, after scampering outside with her family, away from the wolves, realises that her pink pig-puppet has been left behind. And he has to be rescued. Inspite of her fear of the wolves. To her, it is her baby. Not "just a puppet!" as her father puts it.
This is something A could relate to very well, as she loves babies, and has already declared to me that she will marry (boys? yucky creatures!) only because she wants babies!
So what happens next? Does Lucy manage to get into the house and rescue her pink pig-puppet from the clutches of the wolves? And do they manage to drive the wolves out, after all?
A and I read this nail-biting, on-the-edge-of-our-seats story recently, and A loved it. As she rightly put it- "I'm glad I'm not so little anymore, or I would have been really frightened." For the book is the stuff of nightmares. So although it is a picture book that can be read aloud to younger children, maybe 5+, I would still put the appropriate age at 8+.
We visited Neil Gaiman, the writer in this post during CROCUS 2010, on Saffrontree. All the books that I have read by him were spooky to an extent I was not comfortable with introducing to A, knowing her. So when I read through this book, it came to me that here was the perfect book with which to introduce this wonderful writer to her.
And the illustrations! Done in a combination of pen-and-ink sketches, watercolours and actual photographs, Dave McKean has brought the 'spooky' factor alive for us. It has that unmistakeable quality of graphic novels, where sometimes pictures speak more than words. Full page, in dark shades, alternating between hazy and stark, with the text written at strategic points. Dark but funny, realistic yet enchantingly fairy-tale like. A perfect foil for Gaiman's story-telling.
Two pictures struck us as extraordinary- the page on which the wolves come out of the walls- she let out a small scream, the dynamic energy of the wolves running out, with that 'almost heard in your head' baying that can be easily imagined. Another is the page on which the family is huddled outside around a fire- the fire has a very realistic glow in the overlapping strokes of red, yellow and orange that the artist has used. One could almost feel the heat.
A great book for addressing those things that go 'bump' in the night.
Crossposted at Saffrontree.
Edited to add : Entering this for the Reading the world challenge 2011 for A under Great Britain and fiction.
