THE BIG BAD WOLF IN MY HOUSE

A fablelike telling of domestic violence.

The story starts abruptly. “He didn’t need to huff, or puff or blow the house down”; a tall, brown, bipedal wolf strides into the home of a White, blond woman and her dark-haired White child. While “he batted his eyelashes and purred like a pussycat in front of my mother,” in the next spread he’s glancing back at the narrator “with cold eyes and sharp teeth.” The abuse escalates from shouting at the mother when she’s late through throwing a plate to leaving “finger marks on my arm.” Artfully harking back to an old tale, the child frets that “the blankets jumbled up around my head did not protect me any more than a pile of straw,” and the bedroom door, “a barrier made of wood,” was no protection; the only recourse is to build “a fort made of bricks” and “put it up around my heart.” This story is intense but it is never gratuitous, and before long the mother gets them to a safe house. Some might worry about frightening children with an honest depiction of abuse, but, as the narrator acknowledges, this is only slightly darker than many fairy tales. More importantly, it provides some readers with a much-needed recognition of their experiences while for others it is an age-appropriate introduction to a crucial subject.

Masterfully done.