Tactile terrors await anyone intrepid enough to insert little hands into the raised pockets of this nighttime ramble.
Sure that there’s a wolf hiding on the farm, brave Little Piglet scouts barn and byre. At each stop/spread, readers are invited to “[s]lide your hand in if you dare…Wolf may be lurking so BEWARE!” Inside the pockets, invisible to the eye, are patches of fur, jaggedly cut pieces of (soft) plastic, swatches of rough or sticky material and other thrilling surprises—all of which, after a momentary frisson, turn out to belong to innocuous farm animals. Though shadowy, the cartoon illustrations send a contrastingly nonscary message, with cleanly drawn, harmonious-looking rural scenes populated with smiling livestock…and, of course, it’s all a setup for a big, toothy, shriek-inducing pop-up wolf on the climactic final spread.
Perhaps not the best choice for naptime or bedtime (bwa ha ha), but certain to elicit audience demand for multiple re-reads and sturdy enough to stand up to them. (Novelty picture book. 4-7)
