Acclaimed picture book author-illustrator Peter McCarty’s graphic novel debut, The Five Wolves, is a fever dream of a tale in which five wolf artists embark on a fantastical journey around the world, looking for subjects to draw.
Soon after setting sail on a Viking-esque longboat, the wolves encounter a fish that tries to eat their paintings and a clowder of artistic cats that fire a cannon at them. On land, the wolves roam forests and troop through tunnels; along the way, they argue with a dragon about a mural, chat with inquisitive rabbits and decline a princess’ offer of dessert because “Wolves do not eat cake.”
That’s just a few of the things that happen in The Five Wolves, which brims with finely crafted illustrations and densely packed hand-drawn text. Every page is different, as befits a tale that’s part poem, part mediation on art, part comedy and part drama—with some swashbuckling adventure to round things out. McCarty, who received a Caldecott Honor for Hondo & Fabian, uses a muted palette in which gray and sepia are prominent, letting other colors appear during pivotal moments such as this (red) argument: “Scribbling is not art. / Yes it is. / Are you an artist? / No. / Then be quiet.”
Certainly, readers will fall silent as they pore over The Five Wolves, a wonderland of visual stimulation and philosophical rumination. Much like Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret or Norton Juster’s The Dot and the Line, this daring title is sure to provide plenty of discussion and contemplation fodder for artistically inclined thinkers of all ages.
