Wolves in the Walls - Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's picture book The Wolves in the Walls tells the story of Lucy and her family, when one day Lucy started hearing noises inside their walls. She then warns her family about something as "wolves in the walls" only to be disputed by her mother "Oh it must be the rats" her mother would tell her. Until her father and brother would not believe her either, they even said to her ''When the wolves come out of the walls", they tell her ''it will all be over''.

Which frightens Lucy more.

Until one night the Wolves did come out of their walls, Lucy and his Tuba playing father together with her mother and brother scampered out of the house into the garden where they spent the night trying to ponder about their future. Her brother suggests, for example, that they escape to outer space where there's "nothing but foozles and squossucks for billions of miles."

Lucy in turn wants to remain still in their house. Remembering that her beloved pig puppet was left behind in their home ( which is now occupied by the Wolves, Wolves sitting on their couches watching the tv, Wolves eating her mother's jam straight out of the bottle, Wolves playing her brother's video game and breaking its high scores ) Lucy silently as a shadow crept back in to the house, unnoticed by the wolves busy frolicking inside Lucy rescued her beloved pig-puppet.

Upon returning to the garden where her family searches for her, Lucy devised a plan of how to retake their own home from the wolves.

The plan was to go back to the house, hide inside the walls and peek out at the wolves on by way of a hole on the painting hanging on one of the walls. When Lucy's family cannot take the sight of the Wolves spilling popcorn on slices of toast and jam, dashing up the stairs, and wearing their clothes, they decided to come out of the walls themselves.

And that scares the Wolves out of their senses, they in turn yelled ""And when the people come out of the walls, it's all over!" The Wolves flees out of the house and was never seen again.

Life returned back to normal after a few days of cleaning the mess the wolves have left behind. That is until Lucy hears another noise coming inside the walls "that sounded exactly like an elephant trying not to sneeze."

----
"Wolves in the Walls" is a children's book but its audience can be very well stretched out to adults, the artwork by Dave Mckean is wonderfully made, the shadows, colors and character animation are a feast to the eyes.

The story is simple, is it too frightening for children? i dont think so, in fact the concept of the story will teach children some valuable lessons such us:

1. the importance of communication in a family - Early on Lucy seems not to be taken seriously by her parents, because she was young, her father thinks she's imagining things like a child used to do.

2. Working together sure beats working by yourself - Lucy's family retook their home by staying together and being courageous at a time of a crisis. They eventually scared the Wolves away by displaying such trait.

3. After a problem was solved, comes another one - After the wolves, comes the elephants hehe