The big bad wolf in my house

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Fontaine, Valérie, 1980-

Physical Description:

1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 29 cm.

General Note:

"First published in France in 2020 by Éditions Les 400 coups." -- Colophon.

Summary:

"The young girl tells us that her mom's new friend is just like the big bad wolf. At first the wolf is sweet and kind to her mom, though the girl notices the wolf's cold eyes from the very beginning. When her mom arrives home late one day, the wolf suddenly hurls angry words and terrible names at her. From that day on her mother doesn't smile anymore. The girl is careful to clean her room and brush her teeth and do everything to keep the peace, but the wolf is unpredictable, throwing plates on the floor, yelling at her mother and holding the girl's arm so tightly she is left with bruises. Whenever the yelling begins, she hides under the covers in her room. How will she and her mom cope as the wolf becomes increasingly fierce? Valérie Fontaine and Nathalie Dion have created a powerful, moving story about violence in the home that ends on a note of hope." --

Subject Term:

Family violence -- Juvenile fiction.

Wolves -- Juvenile fiction.

Families -- Juvenile fiction

Fairy tales -- Adaptations.

Additional Credits:

Dion, Nathalie, 1964-

Tanaka, Shelley

Audience/Lexile:

K-3.

AD 510 L

Publication Info:

Berkeley, California : Groundwood Books, 2021.

Subject:

Family violence -- Juvenile fiction.

Wolves -- Juvenile fiction.

Families -- Juvenile fiction

Fairy tales -- Adaptations.

Domestic violence

Household violence

Interparental violence

Intrafamily violence

Fairy tales -- Juvenile fiction

Fairy tales -- Juvenile literature

Fairytales

SAILS ISBN:

9781773065014

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Plainville Public Library	J FONTAINE	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Attleboro Public Library	LRC FONTAINE,V	1:LEARNRESOU	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Carver Public Library	J 155.46 FON	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Easton - Ames Free Library	PARENTING JUV 362.829 FONTAI 2021	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fall River Main	E FON FEELINGS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mansfield Public Library	JPS JJ FONTAINE	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mattapoisett Free Public Library	JPC JP FON	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Norfolk Public Library	JTHEMES ISSUES FONT	1:JTHEMES	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Norton Public Library	PT 362.76 FON	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Plympton Public Library	E FON	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Rehoboth - Blanding Free PL	J 155.46 FON	CHILDREN NONFICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Richards Memorial Library	FONTAINE -- (PICT) (PARENT)	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Somerset Public Library	F O N	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Swansea Public Library	C FON	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Wareham Free Library	JP FON PS	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westport Free Public Library	JPAR FON	PARENTING	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

A young girl describes what it's like when her mom's new friend comes to stay -- a moving story about domestic violence that ends on a hopeful note.

The young girl tells us that her mom's new friend is just like the big bad wolf. At first the wolf is sweet and kind to her mom, though the girl notices the wolf's cold eyes from the very beginning. When her mom arrives home late one day, the wolf suddenly hurls angry words and terrible names at her. From that day on her mother doesn't smile anymore. The girl is careful to clean her room and brush her teeth and do everything to keep the peace, but the wolf is unpredictable, throwing plates on the floor, yelling at her mother and holding the girl's arm so tightly she is left with bruises. Whenever the yelling begins, she hides under the covers in her room.

How will she and her mom cope as the wolf becomes increasingly fierce?

Valérie Fontaine and Nathalie Dion have created a powerful, moving story about violence in the home that ends on a note of hope.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.3
Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.9
Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.2
Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

Reviews (4)

School Library Journal Review

PreS-Gr 4--In a straightforward manner, a small girl narrates how life changes drastically after the Big Bad Wolf moves into her home. The girl and her mother live together until the mother's boyfriend joins the household. At first, they all seem to get along but for the cold looks he directs at the child. One evening the mother is held up in heavy traffic and the wolf goes into a rage. The wolf, shown as a wolf while mother and daughter are stylized, almost fairy-tale perfect humans, does nothing to help around the house and angers easily, often "howling" at them and throwing his dinner on the floor when it's cold. The girl tries to become invisible when she hears his raised voice but that doesn't work and there are times she has to hide her bruises with long sleeves. He enters her bedroom uninvited but what occurs is left to the imagination: "So I built a fort made of bricks. I put it up around my heart." Life dramatically changes again the day her mother packs a bag and they flee to a shelter. This brave book is not merely bibliotherapy. It's a form of deliverance for those who are young, silenced, or inarticulate, while older children will want to discuss more elaborately the issues it addresses. The art resonates, casting simple shapes to allow the text to bear the weight of what is said, and what is not. VERDICT Children who need this book will understand the subtext, and as no community is safe from domestic abuse, the hopeful message will encourage those experiencing similar situations to talk. For every collection.--Maryann H. Owen, Oak Creek P.L., WI

Publisher's Weekly Review

This piercing account of the pain that results when adults harm those around them shows an abuser entering a child's life as a parent's partner. The titular fairy tale metaphor delivers a clear note of threat: "He didn't need to huff, or puff/ or blow the house down.../ The big bad wolf just walked in the door." In simple, grainy spreads of a white child with straight brown hair and a pink barrette, Dion (The Biggest Puddle in the World) delivers the story's message with restraint, showing the results of violence rather than the acts themselves. A broken plate lies on the floor, its food scattered; the child looks at blue finger marks on their arm ("I had to cover them up with long sleeves, even when it was hot out") and lines their shoes up in a perfect line ("I made myself as quiet as a lamb"). At last, mother and child escape to a shelter, where the protagonist instantly feels safe. The first-person telling's candid descriptions of powerlessness, its emotional ramifications, and the prospect of escape all give language to an experience of abuse and let readers in similar circumstances know that they are not alone. Ages 4--8. (Mar.)

Horn Book Review

"He didn't need to huff or puff or blow the house down...The big bad wolf just walked in the door." With this chilling opening, a young girl describes the abuse she and her mother suffer at the hands of her mother's new partner. Pictured as a fairy-tale "big bad wolf" who stands on two feet and casts a menacing shadow, the abuser berates the mother when she is late, leaves bruises on the narrator's arm that she must hide with long sleeves, and enters the child's bedroom without her permission. "He paid no attention to a barrier made of wood." So the girl "built a fort made of bricks. I put it up around my heart," and she protects herself thus until the day she and her mother escape to a shelter for abused women and children. There, "the big bad wolf can huff and puff all he wants. This house will not fall down." The familiar folkloric language and motifs work brilliantly to describe a terrifying, but ultimately hopeful, story of domestic violence. The illustrations effectively convey a child's point of view. The wolf, for example, takes up more visual space than either the child or her mother. When the wolf is "spitting mad" and yelling at the child's mother, his large dark shape curves and looms over her, blocking any escape. Still, as difficult as the content is, a gentle palette of cream and yellow, with accents of red, gives the reader some respite and foreshadows the hopeful ending. A skillfully crafted, emotionally honest treatment of a very challenging subject. Maeve Visser Knoth July/August 2021 p.76(c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

A fable-like telling of domestic violence. The story starts abruptly. "He didn't need to huff, or puff or blow the house down"; a tall, brown, bipedal wolf strides into the home of a White, blond woman and her dark-haired White child. While "he batted his eyelashes and purred like a pussycat in front of my mother," in the next spread he's glancing back at the narrator "with cold eyes and sharp teeth." The abuse escalates from shouting at the mother when she's late through throwing a plate to leaving "finger marks on my arm." Artfully harking back to an old tale, the child frets that "the blankets jumbled up around my head did not protect me any more than a pile of straw," and the bedroom door, "a barrier made of wood," was no protection; the only recourse is to build "a fort made of bricks" and "put it up around my heart." This story is intense but it is never gratuitous, and before long the mother gets them to a safe house. Some might worry about frightening children with an honest depiction of abuse, but, as the narrator acknowledges, this is only slightly darker than many fairy tales. More importantly, it provides some readers with a much-needed recognition of their experiences while for others it is an age-appropriate introduction to a crucial subject. Masterfully done. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.