From The Wild

More than one million years ago their ancestors roamed our earth.  It is believed they crossed a land bridge first stepping in North America about 250,000 years later.  Dating back to Chauvet Cave in southern France some 26,000 years ago they left a paw print next to that of a young boy.   More recent evidence would suggest the relationship between them and humans could date back as far as 40,000 years ago.

Dogs are proof wolves and humans developed a close connection but the when, where, and how is still being debated.  In From WOLF to WOOF!: The Story of Dogs (Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, April 12, 2016) written and illustrated by Hudson Talbott, a possibility is offered to readers.  Let's open the covers of this book as if we are turning back the hands on the clock of time.

Long, long ago...
before humans and dogs were friends...
in fact, long before there were dogs,
there were...

They lived their lives in packs.  As a member of a pack, their survival was easier.  Whether a wolf ate was never the issue but when they ate depended on their standing in the group.  Following a certain wolf pack was an orphan pup.

He was not being accepted by the leader despite his attempts at being a lookout.  This pup kept a sharp eye out for their enemies, humans.  One night he howled and howled because he spotted a child.

The boy was alone too, looking for food in the garbage left by other humans.  He threw the wolf a bone to quiet his voice.  The pup took it and ran feeling like the luckiest canine alive.

Days after it was consumed the thought of the bone brought the wolf back.  When a second bone was tossed his way he kept it.  During what may have been the first game of fetch, something amazing happened.  From that moment forward a partnership was formed.

Others living on the fringe noticed how successful the boy and his wolf pup were in surviving and surviving well.  The word pack and family became synonymous.  As time moved forward the bond between wolves and humans became stronger as each relied on the other for specific needs.  Some not all wolves evolved into dogs with specific jobs; as varied as the number of breeds and mixes we have today.  Those still in the wild are a reminder of a gift given.


There are some stories written as if we are gathered, sitting in the glow of an evening fire and listening to a tale told.  This is one of them.  Hudson Talbott entertains but also adds pieces of truth to the narrative; the nature of wolves, how dogs' jobs changed as humans changed and their diversity today.  Dialogue in the form of smaller text and thoughts in speech bubbles adds humor and happiness to the story.  Here is a sample passage.

A buddy at last!
Someone to help me find food.
With your nose and my spear,
we'll take on the world!

Great! 
Let's start
with that bone!

They became a great team, hunting and playing
together, and keeping each other warm at night.


The image on the front of the matching dust jacket and book case fits flawlessly with "a picture is worth a thousand words."  Hudson Talbott clearly and cleverly show the progression from wolf to dog.  The spot color of red in the title text and the dog's collar are a bit of design ingenuity.  To the left, on the back, an interior illustration is placed on the same yellow background.  It shows the initial incident of the orphan child throwing a bone to the lone pup.  The shade of blue on the front and in the sky on the back picture covers the opening and closing endpapers.

On the title page a howling wolf is show along with a dog that is seen several more times in the course of the story.  The modern dog offers commentary sure to bring a smile.  Rendered in watercolors, colored pencil, and ink on Arches watercolor paper the visuals reach out to the reader with complete charm engaging them in the story.

Talbott varies his picture sizes; two-page spreads, images crossing the gutter along with circular insets and a column, single pages or a series of smaller pictures grouped to show a sequence of time.  More than once he places circular, oval or arched images on a white background with elements crossing the frame to create more animation.  You get the sense that at any moment one of these illustrations could come to life.  There is a pleasing blend of soft texture and detailed lines in all his pictures in this book.

One of my favorite pictures covers two pages.  It is the defining instance between the pup and the boy.  The wolf covers most of the two pages, lying down, head on paws and with eyes closed.  Only a portion of the child's body is shown.  The background goes, left to right, from pale yellow to white.  I wish I could frame this picture.


From WOLF to WOOF!: The Story of Dogs written and illustrated by Hudson Talbott will certainly be read by dog lovers over and over again BUT it is a tale everyone will enjoy reading and hearing.  It's simply great storytelling.  I think you are going to need more than one copy.  I could even see using portions of this for readers' theater.  At the end of the book Hudson Talbott includes an author's note, additional resources for children and adults as well as websites devoted to the preservation of wolves and other endangered animals.

To learn more about Hudson Talbott and his valued work please visit his website by following the link attached to his name.  At the publisher's website you can view a few more images.   There is also a feature at NPR Books, How Dogs Evolved Into Our 'Best Friends' The two links in the introduction of this post will give you more insights.

UPDATE:  Apri, 27, 2016 Hudson Talbott is featured in a wonderful Q & A at Brightly.
UPDATE:  October 17, 2016 Hudson Talbott is interviewed by author James Preller in a five question conversation. 

To Show, To Share

When we see, taste, touch, smell, hear or do something for the first time, it leaves a lasting impression in our memories.  Everything about this will never be exactly the same again.  If what we've experienced is out of the ordinary, it is only natural to want to share it with others.  We have a desire to recreate this event; to capture it, to preserve it.

I freely admit to not taking this a step further; wondering about the first time anyone sees, tastes, touches, smells, hears, or does what I have.  In his newest title, The First Drawing (Little, Brown and Company) Mordicai Gerstein does wonder.  From a clue, an imprint left in a cave, Mordicai Gerstein makes a story.

Imagine...
you were born before the invention of drawing,
more than thirty thousand years ago.

A young boy lives in a cave with a host of relatives.  One of his greatest joys is spending hours watching all the animals living around his home.  By his side in these daily adventures is a wolf, Shadow.

This boy sees what others do not.  They see clouds or stones but he sees shapes of creatures.  At night when he should be sleeping, as the flames from the fire flicker on the walls, he sees even more animals moving along the rough rock.

He is given a nickname because of his abilities.  It's not meant as unkindness but only a statement of the others' understood truth.  One day as the boy is working with his father, a chance meeting alters the course of everyone's lives.

He, alone except for Shadow, has a very close encounter with a Woolly Mammoth.  As the seconds tick by, his mind is recording every sensory perception.  Later as he tries to explain it to his father, his father sighs the sigh of a long-suffering adult and shakes his head in puzzlement.

Sleep eludes the boy that night.  His memories are conjuring up a living, breathing likeness of the very Woolly Mammoth he saw earlier.  Unable to contain his excitement he awakens all the others in the cave.  As surely as if it is standing before them, he can see it on the wall.  All the others, his parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, cannot.

Impulsively, needing them to see what he does, the boy grabs a stick from the fire.  From the darkened end, lines form a shape.  A frightened shout causes him to stop.  This has to be magic!


It is with the introduction, three simple but intriguing sentences,  Mordicai Gerstein says, "Come readers, turn the page and follow me."  Each statement, or group of statements, on the following pages employs an economy of words but the point of view gives those phrases emotion.  Within the text, Gerstein adds dialogue to bring familiarity to the telling.  We readers become the boy's shadow. A favorite passage of mine is during his meeting with the Woolly Mammoth.

It sniffs you with its trunk,
then stands perfectly still.
So do you.

You're afraid to move.
It's like a fur-covered mountain
with eyes that look into yours. ...


Through his artwork Caldecott Medalist, Mordicai Gerstein has the ability to take us wherever he desires.  Unfolding, spreading open the matching jacket and cover, we see the title over a boy drawing on a cave wall by the light of a fire as a wolf rests watching.  On the back the same wall with the same drawing is featured with a noticeable exception.  A present day boy is looking at the picture, pencils in hand, a roll of paper under his arm.  His faithful hound walking before him points his nose at the footprint of a child and the paw print of a wolf.  The words above them read,

Can you imagine who made the world's first drawing?

This image is repeated inside on the first page followed, with a turn of page, by another of the boy and his dog looking at an elephant in a zoo within the verso on the left-hand side.  Under the text on the title page, on the right, the boy is hanging up his paper.  On the next two pages as the present-day boy stares at the paper, Gerstein shifts us to thirty thousand years in the past to tell his story showing the boy from the past with Shadow looking up at a cloud formation.

In a series of illustrative portrayals rendered in acrylics, pen and ink, and colored pencil, single pages filled with spirit, smaller images grouped on a page brimming with movement and emotion, and dramatic two-page spreads, Mordicai Gerstein makes us believe, in a flicker of spontaneous inspiration, a first happened.  His color palette of mostly brown and blue hues with his intricately drawn lines takes us effortlessly into the past.  One of my favorite illustrations is of the boy sleeping next to Shadow in the cave.  As he dreams of running among the animals whose shapes he sees in everyday things, they appear on the cave wall glowing in the firelight.


As surely as magic must have surrounded people when they looked upon the first painting on a cave wall, readers will feel it too as they read The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein.  Not only is this a marvelous tribute to the act of drawing, but it causes us to wonder about other firsts.  Don't miss this beautiful book!

In an author's note on the final page, Mordicai Gerstein speaks about the inspiration for his telling of this story.  Follow this link to an interview at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.