In the Vedantic philosophy of India, the Rajjusarpa Nyaya parable tells of a man who encounters a snake on the road at night and runs the other direction. Returning in the morning, he discovers that it wasn't a snake at all, but rather a coiled rope. Our perceptions are not the same as reality — in fact, they can miss the mark by a long shot.
Sylvie and the Wolf introduces us to a girl who's not afraid of anything until, on a foggy day, a shadow in the still and silent woods moves, and she hears a growl. "Her heart flapped like a bird, and she had one loud thought: WOLF!" Like the man in the Vedantic story, she runs away, and when her Tante asks her what's wrong, Sylvie feels too foolish to say.
As Sylvie encounters her fear, Mercè López — a Spanish illustrator of dozens of projects in design, cinema, publishing, and more — takes us from the warm embrace of the green, brown, gold, and blue of summer to the stark white, black, and gray of winter. She envelops us in a sense of mystery, showing the vastness of the unknown as Sylvie runs across a long field to get from the woods to her house, with ice-covered mountain peaks in the distance.
When friends find out and tease her for thinking she saw a wolf, Sylvie's fear and ensuing embarrassment keep her from doing things she loves: going skating, sitting with neighbors at their bonfire. It's not until Tante suggests that she and Sylvie could go together to investigate whether there are any wolves in the forest that the story turns around to an unexpected and thoroughly heartwarming resolution.
Author Andrea Debbink spent nearly a decade as an editor at American Girl magazine. A certified Master Naturalist in Wisconsin, she loves to focus her writing on nature and includes at the end of this book for four-to-eight-year-old readers a word about the importance of wolves, emphasizing their intelligence, playfulness, and devotion to family. She specializes in immersive nonfiction storytelling for middle-grade readers but also writes picture books and has two forthcoming books for adults. Based on this sample, we hope she will keep the picture books coming!
