in 2010, author Debra Mitts-Smith published a classic inside look at how The Wolf has been depicted for children via books............Entitled PICTURING THE WOLF IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, the author "poses the idea that since the pictures in children's books usually create the first and often only images of wolves most people see, they deserve serious study and reflection"............"Adults will find this a useful guidebook to the wolf that is symbolic of fear or love of the wild in our lives"......."Perhaps it will lead us to differentiate between the wolf of RED RIDING HOOD and the wild wolf that if we are lucky, crosses the road in front of us stopping just long enough for us to register each other's reality before it slips into the woods"---Nancy Jo Tubbs reviewing the book in the Fall 2015 issue of INTERNATIONAL WOLF MAGAZINE

From the villainous beast of “Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs,” to the nurturing wolves of Romulus and Remus and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, the wolf has long been a part of the landscape of children’s literature.

 Meanwhile, since the 1960s and the popularization of scientific research on these animals, children’s books have begun to feature more nuanced views. In Picturing the Wolf in Children’s Literature, Mitts-Smith analyzes visual images of the wolf in children’s books published in Western Europe and North America from 1500 to the present. In particular, she considers how wolves are depicted in and across particular works, the values and attitudes that inform these depictions, and how the concept of the wolf has changed over time. What she discovers is that illustrations and photos in works for children impart social, cultural, and scientific information not only about wolves, but also about humans and human behavior.

First encountered in childhood, picture books act as a training ground where the young learn both how to decode the “symbolic” wolf across various contexts and how to make sense of “real” wolves. Mitts-Smith studies sources including myths, legends, fables, folk and fairy tales, fractured tales, fictional stories, and nonfiction, highlighting those instances in which images play a major role, including illustrated anthologies, chapbooks, picture books, and informational books. This book will be of interest to children’s literature scholars, as well as those interested in the figure of the wolf and how it has been informed over time.