The Adventures of Polly and the Wolf, by Catherine Storr

As I type this, my peripheral vision is full of unread books--enough books to last for ages of happy reading.   But I make no progress, for I live 172 steps (I counted yesterday for the first time) from the library, and it is a library whose collection went thirty years untended, and there I am, running the book sales...and that means that I see everything that's now being weeded.*

I thought when I moved here that I would spend lots of time exploring the shelves of books from days gone by, and I did, but it is surprising what a person misses when looking at shelves that the same person wants very much when it turns up in a discard pile...and so I found myself, yesterday evening, curling up with The Adventures of Polly and the Wolf, by Catherine Storr (1957 in the UK, 1970 in the US), and rather pleased to be doing so.  Catherine Storr, you see, is the (English) author of one of my most favorite middle grade fantasy books every, Marianne Dreams.  And I had never read this book of hers before....

When we first meet the wolf, he is contemplating the book to which this a sequel--Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf  (1955).   He is, understandably, depressed--always Polly outwits him, never does he get to eat her.   But maybe, maybe there is a way for the wolf to be clever, or at least so he thinks...And so he tries cunning plot after cunning plot, whether it's disguising himself as Father Christmas, studying hypnotism, or challenging Polly to a riddle game,  but always something goes wrong, and Polly goes home uneaten.  

It's maybe a bit too young for me, but it was enjoyable nonetheless, and it's a rather good book, I think, to give to the kid who needs a little bolstering with regard to facing fears.  But mostly it is full of kid friendly humor, and I think it would make a great read aloud to a cunning sort of child who could appreciate the silliness of the wolf!  I would have been very happy to read these stories to mine, when they were five or six.  They may, though, be a bit challenging for young independent readers--Storr isn't shy about using words like "dexterous," and if you aren't a young reader who just happens to be from the UK of many decades ago you will have to be willing to let three-penny bits and buns wash gently over your head, as the strange sort of thing you might find when in a world where a talking wolf has a house just down the street....

Actually, thinking it over, I wouldn't mind reading this out loud to my 10 and 13 year olds.  The dryish, not quite farcical humor might make them chuckle, even at their advanced ages...

*(also being weeded in this batch--several Noel Streatfeilds, including Theatre Shoes, a book that . made me faint with happiness when I found it in the Arlington Central Library back when I was young and visiting my grandparents.  They weeded it out years ago, along with most of the other books that I checked out every single summer, and it makes me sad that children of today will not have Noel Streatfeild in their libraries.)