How To Draw A Wolf In The Woods

The Last Wolf

Once upon a time, Little Red set off into the woods to catch a wolf . . . But the woods aren't all they seem - and are there even any wolves left? Mini Grey re-imagines the classic Little Red Riding Hood fable in an entirely new way. Can Little Red help her new friends in need and recover the wild days of the past? This is a powerful, moving and funny picture book which will have children and adults revisiting its exquisite pages time and time again, and discussing the important message it holds. From the award-winning author/illustrator of The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, The Pea and the Princess and Biscuit Bear.

Wood-Folk Comedies: The Play of Wild-animal Life on a Natural Stage

SUNRISE in the big woods, morning and springtime and fishing weather! For the new day Killooleet the white-throated sparrow has a song of welcome; fishing has its gleeman in Koskomenos the kingfisher, sounding his merry rattle along every shore where minnows are shoaling; and for the springtime even these dumb trees grow eloquent. Yesterday they were gray and dun, as if life had lost its sense of beauty; to-day a mist of tender green appears on every birch tree, a blush of rose color spreads over the hardwood ridges. Woods that all winter have been silent, as if deserted, are now alive with the rustling of eager feet, the flutter of wings, the call of birds returning with joy to familiar nesting places. Above these quiet voices of rejoicing sounds another note, loud, rhythmic, jubilant, which says that Comedy, light of foot and heart, has once more renewed her lease of the wilderness. High on a towering hemlock a logcock has his sounding board, dry and resonant, where he makes all the hills echo to his lusty drumming. The morning light flames on his scarlet crest as he turns his head alertly, this way for the answer of a mate, that way for the challenge of a rival. Nearer, on the roof of my fishing camp, a downy woodpecker is thumping the metal cover of the stovepipe, a wonderful drum, on which he can easily make more noise than the big logcock. Every day before sunrise that same little fellow appears on my roof, so punctually that one wonders if he keeps a clock, and bids me “Top o’ the Morning” by sending a fearful din clattering down the stovepipe. It is a love-call to his mate, no doubt; but the Seven Sleepers in my place must be roused by it as by dynamite. This morning he exploded me out of sleep at four-twenty, as usual; and so persistent was his rackety-packety that I lost patience, and threw a stick of wood at him. Away he went, crying “Yip! Yip!” at the meddlesome Philistine who had no heart for love, no ear for music. He was heading briskly for the horizon when, remembering his shy mate, he darted aside to the shell of a white pine, where he drummed out another message, only to meet violent opposition from another Philistine. He had sounded one call, listened for the effect, and was in the midst of another ecstatic vibration when there came a scurry of leaves, a shaking of boughs, and Meeko the red squirrel appeared, threatening death and destruction to all drummers. Evidently Meeko was planning a nest of his own in that vicinity, and had no mind to tolerate such a noisy fellow as a near neighbor. As he came headlong upon the scene, hurling abuse ahead of him, the woodpecker vanished like a wink, leaving the enemy to threaten the empty air; which he did in a fashion to make one shudder at what might happen if a red squirrel were half as big as his temper. Once I saw a bull-moose accidentally shake a branch on which Meeko happened to be sitting while he ate a mushroom, turning it around in his paws as he nibbled the edges; and the peppery little beast followed the sober great beast two or three hundred yards, running just above the antlered head, calling down the wrath of squirrel-heaven on all the tribe of moose. Now, in greater rage because the object of it was so small, he whisked all over the pine, declaring it, kilch-kilch! to be his property, and warning all woodpeckers, zit-zit! to keep forever away from it. Hardly had he ended his demonstration of squirrel rights and gone away, swearing,to his interrupted affairs when another hammering, louder and more jubilant, began on the pine shell. Here was defiance as well as trespass, and Meeko came rushing back to deal with it properly. Sputtering like a lighted fuse he darted up the pine and took a flying leap after the drummer, determined this time to make an end of him or chase him clean out of the woods. Into a thicket of spruce he went, shrilling his battle yell. Out of the thicket flashed the woodpecker, unseen, and doubled back to the starting point. There a curious thing happened, one which strengthened my impression that all birds have more or less ventriloquial power to make their calling sound near or far at will. The woodpecker lit on precisely the same spot he had used before, and hammered it with the same rapidity and rhythm; but now his drum sounded faintly, distantly, as if on the other side of the ridge. Growing bolder he changed his note, put more hallelujah into it, and was in the midst of a glorious rub-a-dub when Meeko came tearing back through the spruce thicket and hunted him away.

A Dictionary for Primary Schools