ROSE WOLVES

A wordless miniature myth about a girl and a flower-tailed forest-dweller.

A dark-haired, pale-skinned young girl wakes up eager to explore; sticking a twig in her hair, she heads out for the woods. While surveying the forest floor, she tumbles down a hillside and arrives at a cave housing a brambly bush. She plucks a rose from the bush and brings it home, where she sets it by her bedside, beneath the full moon’s glow. In the morning, she’s delighted to meet a black figure at her bedside, an exuberant young wolf with a rose for a tail. The wolf is missing a leg, mirroring her own missing arm, and the pair bond quickly. They play fetch, she feeds it strawberries, and she observes that its petals are beginning to fall. She resolves to return her new friend to the rosebush from whence it came—but not before encountering a dangerous situation in the woods along the way. Warner communicates the loneliness, curiosity, blossoming friendship, and deepening bond between the girl and her lupine companion with wide-eyed surprise and gentle embraces in spare, effective visual language. Warner’s illustration style is intently cute without being saccharine, bittersweet without being ponderous.

An exploration of love, kindness, and duty communicated eloquently without a word.