THE WOLVES OF GREYCOAT HALL

Driven out of Scotland generations ago, a refined family of wolves returns to reclaim its heritage.

Inspired perhaps by recent calls to rewild Scotland, Gifford kits out young Boris Fenrir Wolfgang McLupus Greycoat and his equally hairy parents, Randall and Leonora, in fashionable tweeds and sends them from a comfy manor on the continent to visit their ancestral land. There, along with discovering the pleasures of Scottish food and country rambles, they fall in love with a decrepit castle near the village of Portlessie that is about to be sold and leveled to make way for posh villas. Although, as the author explains in one of several humorous sidebar comments on wolfish behavior, hunger will occasionally drive wolves to “Undignified Situations and Embarrassing Incidents,” in fact they generally have faultless manners and indeed soon win over all the understandably apprehensive locals except for a choleric real estate developer who serves as the villain of the piece. The castle is saved, of course, and prior to the closing map and recipe for bannocks, Boris has even begun to make sense of the local Scots Doric (“Awawiyethen,” says the friendly fishmonger). Along with charming pastoral scenes of the shaggy tourists and their McLupus ancestors in tartans, this delightful tale includes frequent comical tableaux that offer views of turreted castles, quaint shops, and cozy homes as well as resident humans of diverse hue.

Furry fun, with much affectionate tweaking of local culture and attitudes.