BIG BAD WOLF

Dr. Glenda (a dog) and Nurse Percy (a rooster) deal with a familiar fairy-tale villain while on duty at the hospital in this humorous Urgency Emergency! series entry for new readers.

As the story opens, Nurse Percy is comforting a little lamb in a red coat who can’t find her grandma. An ambulance arrives with a patient who can’t breathe; it’s a distressed wolf who seems to have choked on a foreign object. Dr. Glenda determines that it might “not be something stuck in his throat—it may be someone.” With the help of the nurse, the doctor repeatedly squeezes the wolf around the middle until the grandma pops out, “a bit chewed around the edges, but otherwise OK.” The observant nurse identifies grandma-gobbling as illegal activity and calls the police, who quickly arrive to take the culprit away. The grandma sheep and the little lamb in the red coat leave for home together, but the origins of the characters are left for readers to infer themselves. The wolf is suitably wild and toothy, though not overly scary, and the other characters are earnestly entertaining in the cartoon-style illustrations set against cheerful yellow backgrounds.

Not quite as hilarious as the other initial offering in the series, Itsy Bitsy Spider, which publishes simultaneously, but an amusing take on an old story and a fast-reading, funny choice for new readers.