Title: This Is the Path the Wolf Took
Author: Laura Farina
Release Date: 9.1.2020
Review Date: 5.15.2020

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This one is pretty cute. It had some cute illustrations and the story was fun.

Cute story about a brother & sister during an imaginative storytelling rendition of "The Big Bad Wolf." Creative illustrations and storyline! I enjoyed reading with my son and trying to figure out what would happen in the end!

This Is The Path The Wolf Took is a beautifully told tale about a brother telling his younger sister stories in which he removes all the scary bits (as he doesn't like those). However, his younger sister loves a story with some danger and quickly gets fed up of his tales. The brave hero, Sir Gabriel, soon realises that with no wolves or dragons to slay with no danger lurking and everyone eating ice cream, he is in a really boring story. He decides to be the hero of a tale of danger, bravery and courage instead and discovers that perhaps this makes for a more interesting story and you can still have a happy ending.
The illustrations are wonderful throughout, my son particularly loved the dragon and his favourite part of the story was when the wolf was scared by Sir Gabriel at the end.
I enjoyed reading this book to my son at bedtime and he has requested we read it again another night, always the sign of a good book!!

Gabe like reading to his little sister, but he finds the wolf in the stories too scary, so he modifies them to suit himself. Unfortunately his sister doesn't like his stories because they're "boring" and not how daddy or mommy read them. Gabe needs to find a solution to keep both his sister - who likes dramatic stories - and himself - who doesn't - happy.

This is a sweet book about compromise, as told through the storytelling of a young child.

*I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I'm beginning to think that every book through Kids Can Press is going to be a favorite for Children's Fiction. A boy is telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood to his sister, but changes it up as he self inserts into the story. He does the same for the Three Little Pigs and so on. He is a knight who always slays and saves the day. I love how the book is written. I love the artwork. This is something children would adore. Reading this aloud would probably prompt the same reactions from children as the sister has. "Hey, that's not how that story goes!"

Where were these books when I was a kid?!?!?!

I really loved this fun book. The story is about a brother and sister reading a familiar story. The brother has taken liberty with his telling . The illustration is quite cute. I found myself chuckling , imagining my own son acting the same way. Opportunity for many readings of this story , and many voices you can create in telling.

I loved that this story surrounded a pair of siblings and the brother telling stories to his sister. It's a sweet family story of a mash-up of some children's classics and ever present sibling disagreement. The illustrations were funny and well done in a very classically illustrated fashion. It's a sweet book to add to your collection and one that even as children age would be enjoyed.

Thoughts from the Mini-Me-Reviewer: It's a mix of little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs, and perhaps Arthur and the Round Table. The person telling the story is the little girl's brother. The girl keeps telling the brother that the parent's stories are better. So the brother keeps having to tell different ones, but there is always ice cream in there. I liked the story because it was a good fiction story mixed with fantasy and a mix of small kid stories.

This is exactly the kind of thing thats goes on with the 5+ age range of kids. Once my 5 year old saw the wolf and a kid, she went she knew this story. In few pages, she wanted another story. Thats exactly what happens in the book on the next page. How do you read a story for two different age ranges. One doesnt want gory things to happen in their book. How do you make it interesting matching all the things your readers want in the book and also not have the what they dont want. This is a mish mash of two stories where the wolf is populary known and then the 5+ realises that all the important things are missing, so a third strain with a common theme connecting the three finally has all the missing points. If you like to shake up your bedtime story and are ok with some disorientation, then you will love this book, like we did.
Just liked the path taken, there are many other paths that could be taken and end up with different endings. And yeah, there's loads of icecream for everyone.
The illustrations of the wolfs teeth as mountains is very engaging.

Cute, charming and sweet, with beautiful illustrations and relatable characters for children. It reminds me of my own childhood and reminds children that there's no story with out the villains. Excellently written and my 7 year old sister loved it. I cant wait to read more of this author's work and buy a copy for the children of my mums nursery as soon as soon comes out.
I'm going to review it on goodreads as well and post a review on Instagram once I have a copy💞

I enjoyed the child voices in this book as a boy tells his sister his version of some fairy tales. A great introduction to fractured fairytales.

I received an advance reader's copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a cute story about a boy and his sister sharing stories together. The boys little sister likes the classic stories told with the wolf like her parents read them to her but the big brother only likes books where nothing bad happens because he is the hero in the story. He then comes to realise that always being the hero can become boring and then tells a tale they'll both enjoy.
I thought this book was a fun read.

A hearty attempt by a little boy at revising traditional tales to avoid mishaps results in his sister’s lack of attention. Famous stories such as “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and “Little Red Riding Hood” have their chance at improvization. Children might have to be familiar with the stories that are revamped in this book in to appreciate the plot and humor here. In that way, they could react with a “no, no, that’s not how it happened.”

I was really hoping I would like this story, but it fell flat for me. It could be one of those books that doesn’t come across as well in an electronic format. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I could have seen the pages side by side rather than one at a time.

The premise is cute. A little boy tells his sister well-know stories with some minor adjustments so that he is the hero and nothing bad really happens. However, his sister isn’t impressed with his stories, and he has to come up with something different that she will enjoy. I don’t think I would add this to my school’s collection.

'This Is the Path the Wolf Took' is a story about Gabe who loves to narrate stories to his little sister. He tailors the stories and makes sure they are devoid of villains and bad events. But his sister doesn't like his versions and throws a huge fuss every time he narrates a story, How Gabe tackles this issue forms the rest of the story.

The story was fresh and new. The illustrations were colorful and interesting. I loved the tale that he concocted to entertain and captivate his little sister.

This book got me confused.what was this all about ?Brother changing bad parts of fairytales for the sister and makes stories boring but actually he made this book way too boring to read .This boring that I actually thought to DNF it .Somebody please explain .
The illustrations are nice though.

A lovely book for children with beautiful illustrations that shows that one can be very creative when it comes to the well-known fairy tales. The story and outcome may differ based on who is reading/narrating it. Nevertheless, it became a bit repetitive and we wished there was a little bit more to the relationship between brother and sister.

A cute book that reimagines classic wolf fairytales. I liked the idea, but found the execution to be lacking. I think it could have been more interesting or funny. The illustrations were wonderful, but the text was a little choppy. Overall, a cute story that young children will enjoy.

Thank you NetGalley and Kids Can Press for providing this ARC.

Title: This is the Path the Wolf Took

Author: Laura Farina

Illustrator: Elina Ellis

Publisher: Kids Can Press

Date: September 2020

Pages: 48

Let me get the positive thought about this book out of the way early so there is no mystery or beating around the bush: the artwork, as I expected, was wonderful. Kids Can Press does a really good job selecting artists for their stories. I always appreciate the effort that goes into nice colorful drawings.

That's the easy part.

Now, the hard part.

I'm on the fence about this book to be honest with you. It's not because there's not a good idea behind it--who among us hasn't reimagined a story the way we would like it, where we are the hero, and with a bit of dramatic flair worthy of our best daytime 'stories' (i.e., soap-operas)? It's not that the story wasn't funny--there were some truly comedic moments. It's not that drawing upon time honored fairy tales (e.g., Little Red Riding Hood) to make a point is a bad idea.

I think part of the point attempting to be made is that stories need to have 'bad' or 'sad' parts and that stories made up of only 'good' or 'happy' or 'hero' parts are somehow falling short or missing the mark.  Could be. And if that is the point, then that's not a bad point to be making. It's not that reimagining stories with all the bad parts gone is a terrible thing either (I can't tell you how many times I have wondered what would have happened if Edmond Dantes had never been imprisoned at the Chateau D'If and instead had married Mercedes, become captain of The Pharoan, and enjoyed his father's company.) Frankly, I think we all often think about what life would be like with all the bad or sad or terrifying parts removed.

Then there might not be any heroes. But maybe a world without heroes isn't such a bad thing.

With that being said, I find it a bit ironic that the storyteller in the story, Sir Gabriel, lost his audience (his sister) as part of the plot. Then Gabriel comes to his own realization that the is 'part of a very boring story' (!). I'm not sure if the author is communicating her own boredom to her readers or what. It was kind of funny though. What does an author or storyteller have to do to hold the readers' attention? Can stories be told without conflict? Without heroes? It's actually a rather brilliant question she is asking.

Kids probably won't care all that much. It is fairly classic in the sense that it borders on the edge of the hero journey. It's close, not perfect, but close. The hero does go through a crisis in the story and has to re-evaluate everything. The hero does reemerge to fight another day.

It's not a frighteningly terrible story. It think it has some places where students can be invited in to offer up opinions or make predictions about what's going on in the story. There are some relatable characters and, to be sure, I like that she was able to make allusions to classic fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. This provides the teacher or parent with opportunities to branch out and read those stories to children too. And that is always a good thing.

I think I'm where the average is on this book as far as stars are concerned. I hope the author will write more children's stories. Let's see where she takes us...

4.5/5 stars.

(I started out at 3 stars for this book. As the day went on, I slowly started changing my mind. I think the average is 4; it gets the additional half star because I like the presence of the hero element.)

I was provided a free Adobe Digital copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my fair and honest review. This I have done. There was no other considerations made in exchange for my review.

This Is the Path the Wolf Took by Laura Farina is a fun book about facing your fears (of scary stories), and making yourself the hero in them by being confident. It resonated with my son, who is very timid of scary topics in books, so it will be great for other kids like him.

Gabriel is telling his little sister a story.
But in THIS story, "Sir Gabriel" keeps coming in as the saving hero.
It's a unique twist on some classic children's literature.
My kids enjoyed the story but also the beautiful illustrations!