Bea Wolf

I love a good children’s book that treats kids like the weird, brilliant people they are. Bea Wolf is just that. Is it for every child? Absolutely not. Is there big parental appeal? Yes, but a a former English major, I’m also amazed at what this book was able to accomplish!

This is a graphic novel adaptation for Beowulf for kids that mimics the language of the original and has huge black and white illustrations. Intrigued,I thought so? Imagine that the famous fighter was 6 and instead of great halls you have tree houses, and the evil monster turns kids into adults, and they travel of tricycles to rage war. I don’t want to give too much away about what makes this title special, but trust me that it is special! The illustrations are so fun and perfectly in black and white that I want to make coloring pages out of them! The way Weinersmith was able to keep the syntax and structure of the lines but still make it accessible to kids (albeight maybe OLDER kids, not 5 year olds) is impressive, and it begs to be read aloud! I may go back and listen to the audiobook.

I will simply leave you with this spread and ask you to read it yourself! I definitely think this will be on a lot of Newbery-contender lists this year.