Wolves in the Wall

"We could go and live on a desert island," her father told them all that evening (Over a dinner of hamburgers and french fries and little apple-pies with astonishingly hot middles which Lucy's mother had brought for them when she got back from work.) "We could live in a grass hut with grass walls on an island in the middle of the sea, with nothing but goats on the island and nothing but fishes in the sea."

"We could live in a hot-air balloon," said her mother.

"We could live in a tree-house at the top of a very tall tree," said her brother.

"Or we could go back and live in our house again," said Lucy.

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Gaiman & McKean

Gaiman and McCkean began their collaborative work in 1987 on the graphic novel, Violent Cases, followed by the Black Orchid comic series in 1988.  They have collaborated on four picture books, as well as two children's chapter books:

• The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish
• The Wolves in the Walls
• Crazy Hair
• Mirrormask
• Coraline
• The Graveyard Book

Synopsis

Lucy is sure there are wolves living in the walls of her house, although her mother, father and brother disagree -- and try to convince her she mistaken. The adventure begins when the wolves come out, but living at the bottom of the garden and sleeping in the shed are just not working for the family.  When Lucy rescues her pig puppet one night, she learns the family could return to live in walls of their house with the wolves never being the wiser. But it is too much to watch the wolves eat mother's homemade jam, playing father's second best tuba and beating brother's highest video game scores!

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World Relevance

G.K. Chesterton once said, “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

Have you ever noticed children between 4 and 8 years old love hearing and reading fairy tales over and over? These stories are filled with boys and girls -- facing dangerous decisions -- who are just about the age of the child snuggled up close to hear the story. Magical thinking -- the belief the world and events around you are a reflection of your thoughts -- is developmentally appropriate for this age. Fairy tales are evidence that children can defeat the dragons -- in this case, wolves -- in their lives.

Learning Connections

• Wolves, Wolf Park
• Education Resource Pack, Little Angel Theatre
• Ages & Stages: How Children Use Magical Thinking, Miller, Church & Poole, Scholastic
• Teaching Children Philosophy with Wolves in the Wall, The Prindle Institute for Ethics
• Neil Gaiman Book Interview, HarperCollins
• Wolves in the Walls Virtual Reality Movie, Fable Studio
  

Ages: 4 - 10 years old, Emerging Readers, 56 pages.Lucy hears sneaking, creeping crumpling noises coming from inside the walls. She is sure wolves are living in the walls of her house.

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