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panda_incognito's review against another edition
5.0
When I was a small child, this book would have shocked and horrified me. I was so very literal that I could accept no satire and would have considered this book contraband material for even suggesting that badness was an ideal state. Thankfully, my family did not discover this book until I was about twelve, old enough to pick up on the subtlety and find it hilarious. The story cleverly shows how the wolf parents' attempts to teach their children badness backfires on them, and the illustrations and simple text are delightfully humorous.
One of the most winning aspects of this book is how it takes a universal parent/child theme and turns it on its head. Every child can identify with their parents' trying to get them to be good and behave on an outing to a restaurant, but this book takes the familiar reality and gives it a twist: the parents want the children to be bad. Unlike some picture books which try to be funny, this one does not try to act clever for parents, but connects to something fundamental that all children understand and appreciate, mining humor from lifelike circumstances and making kids giggle over the twisted view of the reality they know so well.
One of the most winning aspects of this book is how it takes a universal parent/child theme and turns it on its head. Every child can identify with their parents' trying to get them to be good and behave on an outing to a restaurant, but this book takes the familiar reality and gives it a twist: the parents want the children to be bad. Unlike some picture books which try to be funny, this one does not try to act clever for parents, but connects to something fundamental that all children understand and appreciate, mining humor from lifelike circumstances and making kids giggle over the twisted view of the reality they know so well.
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