“In the middle of the night when everything
was still, she heard clawing and gnawing,
nibbling and squabbling. She could hear the
wolves in the walls….”
Hello and welcome. My name’s Ryan, Let’s
go inside the walls and take a Book Look at
Neil Gaiman’s “The Wolves in the Walls”.
On the title page, we’re given a taste of
what’s to come in the following pages- you
have this cardboard-like texture with the
letters of the book’s title cut out in this
bouncy sort of modern font and photo-realistic
wolves eyes overlaid atop an artful close-up
of a tuba. And off to the side here we’ve
these little bits of package logos.
When we enter Lucy’s family’s home, we’re
greeted with this dingy yellow and ochre interior.
Paint is surreally blended with photographic
and hand-drawn elements such as these wolf
“photos” hanging in the corner.
If you’ve enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s other
spooky tales and his collaborations with the
mixed-media artist Dave McKean on books such
as “Coraline” or “The Day I Swapped
My Dad for 2 Goldfish”, “The Wolves in
the Walls” doesn’t disappoint in that
same surreal eerie moodiness.
CTA: If you’re interested in taking a Book
Look at “The Wolves in the Walls” yourself,
check with your local library and I’ll also
leave a link to where you can get a copy.
Our young hero Lucy hears something, that’s
right, wolves... in the walls. And tries to
warn her family of the danger.
Distracted and busy, each one in turn dismisses
Lucy’s fears. This is a “The Boy Who Cried
Wolf” story… but this time the threat
of the wolves are real from the start, but
no one will listen to her.
Sure enough the wolves do eventually come
bursting from the walls, drawn in this loose
cartooned ink style on a textured paper throughout
their appearances in the book. They’re portrayed
as menacing, but also often comical.
Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean have been collaborators
and more than that, friends, for decades.
They first met in their 20’s and began their
long-standing friendship over working on comic
books together (many of which deal with adult
themes).
From 1989–1997 McKean produced the covers
for Gaiman's celebrated series The Sandman
and the pair also collaborated on six children’s
books to date.
“People ask me who my favourite artist is,
to work with. I've worked with world-class
artists, after all, heaps of them. World class
people. And when they ask me about my favourite,
I say Dave McKean. And then people ask why.
I say, because he surprises me.
He always does. He did it from the first thing
we did together, and a couple of weeks ago
I looked at the illustrations he's done for
our new graphic novel for all ages, THE WOLVES
IN THE WALLS.
He's combined paintings of people, amazing,
funny-scary line drawings of wolves, and photographs
of objects (jam, tubas and so on) to create
something that is once again not what I expected,
nothing like what I had in my head, but better
than anything I could have dreamed of, more
beautiful and more powerful.” -Neil Gaiman
on working with Dave McKean
In the same way that Shaun Tan’s unexpected
illustrations of Grimm’s fairy-tales showed
us that there are no rules to how artwork
can be made, as long as it communicates, Dave
McKean’s mixed-media art throughout the
pages of “The Wolves in the Walls” continues
this lesson.
What this modern day fable tells us is sometimes
we need to be vigilant to unprecedented threats-
things that have never before been experienced
in our life-times. Sometimes we need to come
together as a family, listen to one another
and make a plan, formulate a response.
Do you have other books that you think should
have a Book Look? Let me know down in the
comments below!
Click the first video for another Book Look
and to hear a “The Wolves in the Walls”
reading and more, click the second video.
And if you want to discover new worlds between
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