Sharing with Wolf product reviews

I knew nothing about this book and thought it would be a great book to read with my class about sharing. I did a quick preread and absolutely loved it. Sheep is desperately looking for somewhere to live and naively thinks living with Wolf would be ideal. Throughout the story, Sheep tries to convince Wolf that he'd be the perfect flatmate but Wolf knows herself too well and continues to warn Sheep that she is not the most suitable flatmate.

My year 5 and 6 class (9 and 10 year-olds) loved Szymanik's tongue-in-cheek humour and I could see that it appealed to them as much as it did me. My 10 year-old daughter, who has a quirky sense of humour, loved this book and, whilst the ending is left open-ended (which makes it suitable for younger readers), there is a clever addition at the end that left her in no doubt as to what happens.

Illustrator Nikki Slade Robinson does a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life and telling the story. My students loved looking for the added extras in the text which was a great way of engaging them in the text. The font was easy to read and certain words and sentences were enlarged for emphasis. Sharing With Wolf is a funny, witty, and slightly dark story that will delight children, and whilst you may think there is a 'lesson' from the title (I did), expect to be surprised!

Miss Two liked the graphics in this book, but they were a little too sophisticated for Mr One who quickly lost interest. This was quite satisfactory for Miss Two as she grabbed the opportunity to have some daddy time without her little brother demanding his share of attention. She enjoyed pointing to the pictures of the lamb and the wolf, and making the appropriate sounds for each animal as she looked at them. Although the pictures were a little more stylised than she is used to, the lamb and wolf were both recognisable.

She found the idea of the wolf knitting quite intriguing, and now knows where wool comes from! She was able to follow the story reasonably well, with some help from Dad, but there were some references that were a little beyond her at this stage. However, those understandings will come as she gets older - children mature so quickly, and having plenty of books available means that she is exposed to a wide range of ideas. In the meantime, her parents had the odd chuckle when they read between the lines. There is quite a lot of humour in the narrative which is designed more for parents and older children!

The recipe book and the knitting basket are included as graphics on the book end pages, and also recur throughout the story. The book title - "50 Ways with Mutton" - is a clue as to how much wolves love lamb, although not in the way Lamb imagines! Meanwhile, Lamb's knitting basket bears the words "To knit or not to knit, is that the question?" which would imply that Lamb is not only well educated because he can paraphrase one of the most famous lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, but is also very aware that Wolf is weighing up whether she should knit or do something else (like cooking dinner?) The words on the basket alter as the story unfolds, with the penultimate message "Knotty knitter netted!" carrying an ominous double meaning and the last of all on the bag at Wolf's feet bearing the message "New nutty knotty knitter!" There is the opportunity here for a tongue twister - I tried it and it is actually quite difficult to say fast.

Although the story illustrates the way that it is in the nature of some animals to prey on others, it does take a light-hearted look at what it means to be a carnivore. Unlike Lamb, Wolf is not a vegetarian; in fact, she continually emphasizes that. Lamb just refuses to listen; he is determined to be a change agent and try to stifle Wolf's natural instincts so he can become her housemate. The ending is no more frightening than that of many well-known fairy-tales like Hansel and Gretel or Three Little Pigs, and children will take this sort of thing in their stride if they also understand that it is "only a story" - at least this time round!