'Mr. Wuffles!' by David Wiesner

Mr. Wuffles is a children’s book, written for the four to eight year old range. Mr. Wuffles is a tuxedo cat who may seem rather spoiled. Mr. Wuffles doesn’t enjoy the regular toys that his people purchase for him. One day he receives a toy that he does fancy. The toy brings Mr. Wuffles to life and so begins a quite different children’s book. Tiny little aliens are in the little toy and they speak in speech balloons with geometric symbols. The aliens are forced to run for their lives and take refuge with a group of ants. Drawings similar to cave paintings are on the walls of the ants hide-out in the walls. The two groups soon make their ideas known to each other and form an alliance. They are able to work together distracting the cat so the tiny aliens can return to their “ship” and escape. Finally, they are able to reach the safety of their ship and fly away. His toy lost out the window; Mr. Wuffles is presented with a new toy, but doesn’t care at all. He sits, tail twitching up and down, starring into the ant hole. Inside we see ants re-telling the story and there are new pictures drawn on the walls, including a black and white cat. While this is an imaginative book, I would hesitate to present it to any child that is just beginning to read. My concern is that they may feel the geometric forms in the speech balloons are a language and become confused with English. If the child is old enough to understand the difference, it would probably be okay. It almost seems that the author wrote it more for himself than a children’s audience. I have yet to see what my grandson thinks of it and as he loves books, but isn’t yet two years old, it will have to wait.

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