Illustration Style: Watercolor

"...As for the art itself, it’s so interesting to read and reread and reread again this book. You’d think that a nearly wordless story wouldn’t yield much in the rereadings unless it was chock full of tiny details or something. Cordell does have little details that reward closer examinations (the mom always wears green and the dad yellow, the wolf statue on the mantelpiece, etc.) but the real reason I like reading this book so many times is in how he conveys expression and emotion. For most of the book all you can see of the girl’s face are her eyes. A scarf is wrapped tightly around her mouth, so Cordell has seemingly, and with full knowledge of doing so, limited his heroine’s range of expression. Yet every feeling courses across her face beautifully. We see her exhaustion, her fears, her relief, and her bravery. We can also admire the ways in which Cordell can create water vapor in the air out of watercolors, or the muted pink of a setting sun behind a cloudy sky. " —Betsy Bird, NPR

"Whether it’s double-page spreads or small vignettes, Cordell alternates exactly between the girl’s world and the wolves’ world — until girl and wolf pup meet and their stories merge. The circularity of the story is echoed in the illustrations — and so is the theme of balance. There are many circle vignettes set against white space. And in many of the noncircular illustrations, there are circles. See how the wolves circle the girl when she’s fallen in the snow. See how the human family forms a loose circle when first seen through the cabin window and then a tight, tight circle at the end after the girl’s rescue, in the closing illustration of home.

All those circles are balanced by triangles: the shape of the school; the humans in their parkas, who are pretty much just different colored triangles with arms and legs; the cones of light thrown by the parents’ flashlights. I love the spread where girl and adult wolf size each other up. Inside the left-hand circle is the girl, the point of her hood forming the point of the triangle at the top; inside the right-hand circle is the face of the wolf, with his snout forming the point of the triangle at the bottom. Again, balance." —Martha V. Parravano, The Horn Book