作家、名誉教授、儿童和青少年文学专家、美国伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校图书馆学博士，担任《狼国际研究》杂志定期撰稿人，著有《狼在儿童文学中的形象》（2010年）
翻开任何一本儿童读物，都可以看到狼的形象——或是头戴女士睡帽，或是戴着高顶礼帽，亦或身穿背带裤。有些狼穿戴得像人似的，也有些狼大致保持着本来的样貌。大多数狼都扮演着故事指派给它们的角色，但其中也不乏离经叛道者，偏偏要从自己的角度来讲述故事。
无论在十字路口、家门口、牧场或农舍，童书里的狼总是以掠食者的形象出现的。在《小红帽》（Little Red Riding Hood）、《三只小猪》（The Three Little Pigs）和《小山羊》（The Kid Goats）等警世故事和诞生于古希腊时代的多篇伊索寓言中，狼的捕食性象征着危险的坏人和危险的人类行为。狼把捕食目标对准了体弱多病者和年幼的孩子，使用挑逗、蒙骗、恐吓等手段，这让狼看起来邪恶狡诈，理应受到惩罚。
然而，狼还是一种真实存在的动物，是曾经遍布北半球的大型食肉动物。在欧洲人和欧美人眼中，真实的狼是对他们自身和家养牲畜的威胁，使他们深信内心的恐惧，模糊了现实世界与象征意义的界限。
© 希勒斯·拉沃尔（Gilles Larvor）/VU机构 法国巴黎郊区的贝宗图书馆。
“欧洲、亚洲和北美等地流传着《小红帽》的故事，但版本不尽相同”
《小红帽》的故事就非常值得认真研读。“小红帽”是一个小女孩，她去探望生病卧床的祖母，途中遇到了一只狼。欧洲、亚洲和北美等地流传着这个故事，但版本不尽相同。儿童读物中的故事主要有两个来源：夏尔·佩罗（Charles Perrault） 在1697年出版的法国口头民间故事集和格林兄弟在19世纪收集整理的德国民间故事集。在佩罗的版本里，故事结局是狼吞吃了祖母和小红帽；在格林兄弟的版本里，猎人杀死了恶狼，从狼肚子里救出了祖母和小红帽。1989年，美籍华裔插画家杨志成（Ed Young）出版了绘本《狼婆婆》（Lon Po Po: A Story from China），这是一个中国版“小红帽”，讲述了三姊妹如何智斗恶狼的故事。
镇上新来了一只狼
19世纪末，随着美国西部猎杀野狼的行动渐趋成功，这一时期相继出版的童书开始以更加温情的笔触来描写狼的故事，其中包括加拿大作家兼插画家欧内斯特·汤普森·西顿（Ernest Thompson Seton）的短篇小说《科伦坡狼王罗伯》（Lobo, the King of the Currampaw）（1898年），以及美国小说家杰克·伦敦（Jack London）的《野性的呼唤》（The Call of the Wild）（1903年）和《白牙》（White Fang）（1906年）。这些故事中的狼虽是虚构的，却也可敬可佩。
但直到20世纪下半叶，西方儿童读物中对于狼的刻画才有了深刻变化。在几个因素的共同作用下，以狼作为正面形象的通俗读物大量出现，这其中包括人们开始对狼进行科学研究、狼濒临灭绝，以及狼的法律地位从赏金猎物变为受保护物种。
“狼濒临灭绝，从一方面促成了以狼作为正面形象的通俗读物大量出现”
关于真实狼群的知识得到广泛传播，这促使虚构和非虚构作品中对于狼的描述开始出现了更多变化。这些作品并不否认狼有捕食行为，但认为对于在生态系统中起到重要作用的这种社会性动物而言，这不过是其一个侧面而已。
美国作家兼摄影师吉姆·布兰登堡（Jim Brandenburg）的《与狼面对面》（Face to Face with Wolves）（2008年）重点描写了狼群生活，他强调幼狼的生活方式类似于人类儿童。罗丝安妮·帕里（Roseanne Parry）创作的虚构传记《奇迹小狼》（A Wolf Called Wander）（2019 年）讲述了一只狼在现实世界中长途跋涉1600多公里寻找伴侣的故事；美国作家多萝西·欣肖·帕廷特（Dorothy Hinshaw Patent）的《当狼群归来时》（When the Wolves Returned）（2008年）讲述了狼群放归旧日栖息地之后的故事。
传统故事中的独狼往往会构成威胁；可在当代非虚构作品和现实主义小说中，独狼很脆弱，没有威胁性。这些作品立足于关于狼的科学研究，关注狼群面临的种种危险和挑战，重新定义了其作为捕食者的含义。
从狼孩到狼人
在关于狼的传说故事中，有两个主题一直深深吸引着儿童读物作家和插画家，那就是由狼抚养长大的孩子和狼人。这些故事改变了关于狼的叙事，也改写了狼与年轻人的关系。
英国作家拉迪亚德·吉卜林（Rudyard Kipling）的《丛林之书》（The Jungle Books）（1894—1895年）开篇就讲述了狼群如何拯救人类幼童莫格利（Mowgli）。美国作家琼·克雷格黑德·乔治（Jean Craighead George）的《狼群中的朱莉》（Julie of the Wolves）（1972年）讲述了狼群将小主人公从危险分子手中解救出来。
还有些故事讲的是孩子们如何拯救狼，例如美国作家大卫·麦克费尔（David McPhail）的《狼的故事》（A Wolf’s Story）（1981年）。美国插画家马修·科德尔（Matthew Cordell）的《雪中的狼》（The Wolf in the Snow）（2017年）讲述了一个双向救赎的故事：小女孩救了一只幼狼，这只幼狼所属的狼群后来也救了小女孩。
“变形者或能够化身为狼的人存在于许多文化中”
变形者或能够化身为狼的人存在于许多文化中，并且有着多重含义。日本漫画家往往通过变形者来探讨人类与自然之间关系和性别角色问题。
相比之下，在西方儿童读物中狼的形象是小主人公实现自我表达的一种方式，他们可以借此成为虚构世界中最凶猛的那只狼。在美国作家兼插画家莫里斯·桑达克（Maurice Sendak）的《野兽国》（Where the Wild Things Are）（1963 年）中，小男孩马克斯（Max）装扮成狼的样子，释放出内心冲动的个性；在法国作家兼插画家葛黑瓜尔·索罗塔贺夫（Grégoire Solotareff）的《面具》（Le Masque）（2001年）中，尤利西斯披上一张狼皮，保护孩子们免遭人类捕杀。
狼的故事还是适合戏说的题材。美国作家乔恩·希斯卡（Jon Scieszka）和插画家莱恩·史密斯（Lane Smith）合著了《三只小猪的真实故事，听听狼怎么说》（The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf）（1989年），狼在书中说自己被人误解了，还解释了自己与那三只小猪的遭遇。法国作家兼插画家杰弗鲁瓦·德·佩纳尔（Geoffroy de Pennart）借用了关于狼的传统故事和这些故事中的动物形象，创作出了《红红的小圆帽》（Chapeau Rond Rouge）（2005年）等戏说作品，给传统故事注入现代元素，注重幽默诙谐，弱化道德训教，并且改变了狼的形象。
What big teeth you have: the wolf in children’s books
For a long time the wolf was the ultimate villain in traditional tales, a metaphor for savagery and treachery. It wasn't until wolves gradually disappeared from forests that their status and portrayal in juvenile literature evolved – to the point where they are now sometimes portrayed as allies of children.
Debra Mitts-Smith
Author, professor emeritus, and expert on children’s and young adult literature, Mitts-Smith holds a Ph.D. in Library Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the United States. She is a regular contributor to International Wolf magazine and the author of Picturing the Wolf in Children's Literature (2010)
Open any number of children’s books and you will find wolves in mobcaps, top hats, and overalls. Some are thinly disguised humans while others are thinly disguised wolves. And while most play the role assigned to them, some rebel and insist on telling their side of the story.
Whether at the crossroads, the door, in pastures or farmyards, the wolf of children’s books has been first and foremost a predator. In cautionary tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, and The Kid Goats as well as in many of Aesop’s fables dating back to ancient Greece, the wolf’s predation is a metaphor for dangerous humans and dangerous human behavior. The wolf’s targets (the weak, the young and the ailing) and tactics (flirting, deception, and threats) render him treacherous, immoral, and deserving of punishment.
Yet the wolf is also a real animal, a large carnivore once common to the Northern hemisphere. For Europeans and Euro-Americans, the real wolf was a threat to humans and their livestock, giving credence to their fears and helping to blur the lines between the real and symbolic.
"Variants of Little Red Riding Hood have been found across Europe, Asia and North America"
The story of Little Red Riding Hood, a young girl who meets a wolf on her way to visit her bedridden grandmother, deserves special attention. Variants of this tale have been found across Europe, Asia and North America. The versions found in children’s books draw primarily from two sources: Charles Perrault’s 1697 collection of French oral folktales and the Brothers Grimm’s 19th century collection of German folktales. Perrault’s version ends with the wolf devouring both the grandmother and the little girl while in the Grimms’ version, a hunter kills the wolf and rescues the grandmother and granddaughter from the wolf’s belly. Chinese-American illustrator Ed Young’s 1989 picture book, Lon Po Po: A Story from China, introduced a Chinese variant, where three young sisters outwit the wolf.
A new wolf in town
Towards the end of the late 1800s, as efforts to eradicate the wolf from the western United States were beginning to succeed, several children’s stories featuring wolves in a more compassionate light were published. These included Canadian author and illustrator Ernest Thompson Seton’s short story (1898) Lobo, the King of the Currampaw, and American novelist Jack London’s The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). Although the wolves in these stories were not realistic, they were admirable.
Profound changes in the depiction of the wolf in Western children’s books did not occur however until the second half of the twentieth century. Several factors, including the beginning of scientific studies of the wolf, its near extinction, and a change in the wolf’s legal status from bounties to protection, helped contribute to the proliferation of popular pro-wolf books.
"The near extinction of the wolf contributed to the proliferation of popular pro-wolf books"
The dissemination of information about real wolves has led to more nuanced depictions of wolves in nonfiction and fiction. These works do not deny the wolf’s predation, but instead reduce it to but one aspect of the social animal that plays a vital role in the ecosystem.
In Face to Face with Wolves (2008) American writer and photographer Jim Brandenburg focuses on life in the pack, stressing the ways in which the lives of wolf pups are similar to those of human children. Roseanne Parry’s fictional biography A Wolf Called Wander (2019) recounts the story of a real wolf who traveled over 1,600 kilometres in search of a mate, whereas When the Wolves Returned (2008) by American writer Dorothy Hinshaw Patent shows what happens when wolves are restored to former habitats.
Where the lone wolves of traditional tales pose a threat, those of contemporary nonfiction and realistic fiction are vulnerable, not threatening. Drawing on scientific studies of wolves, these works redefine what it means to be a predator by focusing on the dangers and challenges wolves face.
From wolf children to werewolves
Two wolf lore motifs that have become a source of inspiration for authors and illustrators of children’s books are children raised by wolves and werewolves. These stories rewrite not only the wolf but also the wolf’s relationship with young people.
English author Rudyard Kipling opens The Jungle Books (1894-95) with a wolf pack rescuing the human toddler Mowgli. In American writer Jean Craighead George’s (1972) Julie of the Wolves a wolf pack rescues the young protagonist from dangerous humans.
Other stories such as American writer David McPhail’s A Wolf’s Story (1981) feature children who rescue a wolf. And in American illustrator Matthew Cordell’s The Wolf in the Snow (2017), the rescue is reciprocated: a young girl rescues a wolf pup and is, in turn, rescued by the pup’s pack.
"Shapeshifters or humans that transform into wolves are found across many cultures"
Shapeshifters or humans that transform into wolves are found across many cultures and bear different meanings. Authors of Japanese manga often use shapeshifters to explore the human connection with nature and gender roles.
In contrast, in Western children’s books, the wolf shape becomes the means through which child protagonists can express themselves, making them the fiercest of fictional wolves. In American author and illustrator Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963), a boy, Max, dons a wolf costume and unleashes his inner beast while Ulysses in French writer and illustrator Grégoire Solotareff’s Le Masque (2001) wears the hide of a dead wolf to protect children from human predators.
Wolf tales also lend themselves well to parodies. In American author Jon Scieszka and illustrator Lane Smith’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf (1989), the wolf, claiming to be misunderstood, explains his encounters with three pigs. Using traditional wolf tales and the animals who populate them, French writer and illustrator Geoffroy de Pennart has created parodies such as Chapeau Rond Rouge (2005) that modernize the traditional tales, emphasize humor over moral lessons, and rewrite the wolf.
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