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From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

A jar of jam, a tablecloth, several pieces of furniture. “You’d be surprised what you find inside of a wolf,” says a duck, longtime resident, to a mouse, recently gobbled up, that has joined him in the safe haven of the wolf ’s belly. When the new friends dance it creates a ruckus that sickens the wolf. The sly duck encourages the wolf to eat a few luxuries to ease his upset stomach (“a hunk of good cheese,” “a flagon of wine”). Later, when the wolf narrowly misses a hunter’s bullet, the duck and the mouse decide they must suit up to defend their home; they charge out of the wolf ’s mouth wearing household-item armor to scare away the hunter. In return for saving his life, the wolf grants the two a favor, and you can guess what they ask of him. This droll tale turns the familiar “must escape!” narrative of eaten animals on its head and offers a creative explanation for wolves’ howling at the moon. (Ages 4-8)

CCBC Choices 2018 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2018. Used with permission.

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from August 14, 2017
Barnett’s collaborations with Klassen often draw humor from knowledge withheld. Readers giggled because they knew Triangle was up to no good, and they saw the giant diamond that Sam and Dave missed while digging. In this big-hearted, gleeful caper, everyone shares the laughs. A sweet mouse with pink ears encounters a wolf in the forest. He escapes, right? Wrong. The wolf gobbles him up. Which is awful, right? Nope. It’s surprisingly comfortable inside the wolf. In fact, a duck is already in residence. “Where did you get jam?” the mouse asks over breakfast. “And a tablecloth?” It’s the wolf who suffers. “I feel like I’ll burst,” he moans, as the mouse and duck feast over a candlelit dinner. When a hunter closes in on the wolf, help comes from an unlikely place (and gives new meaning to the phrase “inner resources”). Klassen trades the spare look of his Hat books for a softer, more painterly style. Much of the action plays out against the warm, walnut brown wash of the wolf’s insides; Klassen lingers on the soft grays of fur and feathers. The domestic trappings of the wolf’s interior provide laughs (there’s a full kitchen and record player, the mouse gets hold of a hockey stick), as do touches of Gallic elegance (the mouse and duck dress for dinner, and there is wine). The story’s timeless, fable-like feel is bolstered by its traditional cast and old-fashioned fairy-tale language: “Oh, woe!” cries the wolf. “Oh shame!” Life can turn the tables pretty quickly, Barnett suggests, and only those whose outlooks are flexible will flourish. “I may have been swallowed,” says the duck, “but I have no intention of being eaten.” A rare treasure of a story, the kind that seems to have been around forever. Ages 4–8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.