The Dangerous Book for Rabbits

A loyal Oz and Ends reader advised me after the great flood of comics postings that perhaps I should go back to musing on books about bunnies. But I'm not sure that Emily Gravett's Wolves was what she had in mind.

Wolves has a bunny in it, to be sure. He or she checks out a book about wolves from the library and reads it while walking home. And as she or he reads, wolves creep out of the book, growing larger and larger, until our leporine hero or heroine reads that their prey includes...rabbits.

What follows isn't pretty, although Gravett's combination of drawing and collage is delightful, as is her play with the form and expectations of picture books. To be exact, she assembles a happy ending for sensitive readers from the shreds of the chewed-over book the rabbit was reading.

Wolves is a curious sort of picture book. I bet it holds more appeal for adults who have a lot of experience with picture books as an art form than to little kids looking for a satisfying story. I came across it at the Boston Globe/Horn Book Awards ceremony, where there were many more adult picture-book professionals than children of any age or disposition. I bought a copy for myself, but don't know of any child I'd subject to it.

For another, Wolves is from a curious genre I think of as anti-book books. These volumes portray reading as so powerful than it's actually dangerous. The rabbit in Wolves isn't hunted by wolves naturally; she or he encounters wolves that come out of the library book, with the implication that they would have remained stuck on the page if only that book had never been checked out and read.

In some anti-book books, such as Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, the solution to the problems caused by reading can be found in further reading. But others, like Wolves, don't offer even that comfort.