#319 of 1001 · June 15, 2021

There’s a deceptively mind-bending architecture visible within the confines of @emily_gravett’s spare, dramatic, and pleasingly spooky Wolves. Rabbit takes out a book on wolves from the library (aptly and perhaps ominously titled “WOLVES”) and sets off, reading while walking. Employing a range of mixed-media techniques, Gravett constructs the story with a postmodernist bent, blurring the boundary between Rabbit’s trip home and the large overlaid images of the fictional book-within-a-book. Rabbit seems to inadvertently cross into the dangerous landscape of the wolf book itself, even as the wolves within appear to step out into Rabbit’s reality. Inevitably, just after finding out what sort of furry animals wolves love to eat, Rabbit is unceremoniously devoured (or, at least, so it would appear from the dreadful claw marks on the library book’s cover). But, in a metafictional postscript dripping with wicked irony, Gravett offers a revised ending—a collage in which the wolf and the rabbit are altered to look as though they are enjoying an innocent jam sandwich. This subtle critique of sanitized storytelling serves as a defiant exclamation point on the refreshingly grisly narrative. To cap it all off, Gravett obscures the line between the universe of the book and our own external world with quotes from favorable reviews by fictional rabbit-run publications. #wolves #wolf #rabbit #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcover #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookillustrations #picturebookart #classicchildrensbooks #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks