MIND YOUR MANNERS, B.B. WOLF

Veteran storyteller Sierra takes a refreshingly oblique approach to promoting polite behavior. Invited to a storybook tea at the local library, Wolf—still big but no longer so bad—sets out from the Villain Villa Senior Center determined to be on his best behavior. Predictably, his arrival causes consternation among the assembled guests—until he breaks the ice with a polite “excuse me,” followed by a gigantic, spread-filling belch. Thereafter, he’s the life of the party, and earns a takeaway bag of gingerbread cookies from Miss Wonderly the librarian. In typically quirky digital art, Seibold dresses the wolf in a loud plaid sports coat, and brings an array of familiar figures to the library table, from Little Red Riding Hood to Elmer the Patchwork Elephant and the Little Engine That Could. It won’t take much encouragement to persuade readers to echo Wolf’s parting song: “Even in a house of bricks / Big bad wolves can learn new tricks.” (Picture book. 6-8)