This wolf wants desperately to change the idea that people have of wolves. He feels that from all of the stories he's read that everyone sees wolves as bad creatures and this wolf is determined to change that. The wolf's story has the wolf following footsteps through the woods and asks all of the animals he sees who's footprints they are. Everyone is scared of the wolf, thinking he only wants to eat them. As he continues on, he follows the footprints into a pond where he sees a kind duck who is willing to talk to him when suddenly the wolf loses track of the conversation and begins to think of how tasty the duck would taste. The wolf dives in after the duck and finds himself in his bathtub astonished that he almost let his story end by badly portraying wolves again. I enjoyed the twist in the story where the wolf wonders in and out of his story. This is an excellent technique to keep the reader on their toes to figure out what is really happening and what is part of the story being written. The end is left a bit wide open, which I am ok with because it leaves a sense of wonder for the reader to ponder over. ( )

Finally, a Real Wolf.

Wolf is tired of reading about all the nasty wolves in his books. He decides to write his own story about "Mr. Nice Wolf". But it's hard to go against your instincts.

I absolutely adore this book. I love the story-within-a-story page edgings, the blocky little mice, the sly endpapers with suitable book titles.
I could - and undoubtedly will in storytime - read over and over the perfect moment when Wolf gets completely caught up in his story and....oh, that rubber ducky! Heh, heh, heh.

And I absolutely am thrilled that here's one "villain" who ISN'T redeemed by a helpful friend. Sometimes wolves are....wolves.

Oh, and I love the sausagey squirrels. And the plump little birds. And the way the words wind around the footprints.

This is definitely going to be a storytime staple for a long time - I think I will use it in my upcoming preschool visits also!

Verdict: Highly recommended.

ISBN: 978-0805087925; Published October 2008 by Henry Holt; Borrowed from the library; Purchased for the library; Added to my personal wishlist

Wolf constantly read stories about mean, greedy wolves and he was tired of it, so he wrote his own story about a nice wolf. Mr. Nice Wolf was on a journey to find out whose footprints were engraved in the snow because he wanted to meet a new friend. The footprints belonged to a duck and when he finally met the duck, he almost turned into a bad wolf because it looked so tasty. He dove into the water and ended thankfully ended up in his own bathtub, which saved his story from being just like the mean, greedy wolf stories. This book could be used to show that ideas can spin off of other ideas. ( )