She published more than 30 children's books, but is best known for Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf and Marianne Dreams, which was made into a television series and a film. Friendly Enemy: The Wolf is so inept in attempting to eat Polly that she almost views him as a friend. Most of the stories follow a similar formula: The Wolf, inspired by a fairy story or folk tale, will hatch an overly complicated plan to catch Polly. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. There is also an old printer, a vacuum cleaner and a roll of carpet in there, but “book room” still suits it best, as all the walls are covered in shelves and all the shelves are stuffed with books, and it was between a copy of Tom’s Midnight Garden and a set of Ladybird fairytale books that I rediscovered Catherine Storr’s Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf.

Clever Polly and The Stupid Wolf | PDF | Gray Wolf | Leisure Clever Polly and The Stupid Wolf | PDF | Gray Wolf | Leisure

Some stories have scary elements but they are also full of humour, in one the Wolf tries out various disguises and my daughter laughs atthe story where the Wolfis‘invisible’! A few weeks ago I was helping my mother clear out the room I had as a small child, sifting through moth-eaten teddy bears, boxes of broken crayons and hundreds of children’s books. To me the book is more interesting when read this way, about a real little girl's grappling with an imagined wolf. I read that the book was based on the author's real daughter's real phobia (as a child) about wolves and was a way of working through that. Reading the stories has reminded us of fairy stories that we have forgotten and also inspired us to read new fairy stories and the rhyme, Monday’s Child is Fair of Face.Averted in a few stories such as "The Wolf in the Zoo", when Polly brings him a Cornish pasty and a stick of rock candy, and "In the Wolf's Kitchen", wherein she cooks a variety of meals which he thoroughly enjoys. Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf is the eighthbook that we have read for the 2015 Classics Challenge.

Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf by Catherine Storr Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf by Catherine Storr

She had met the psychiatrist and author Anthony Storr (1920–2001) during her training and married him in 1942.She then went to medical school and worked part-time as a Senior Medical Officer in the Department of Psychological Medicine of the Middlesex Hospital from 1950 to 1963. In the title story he is at one moment saying “I shall be in your bedroom before it’s light tomorrow morning, crunching up the last of your little bones,” and the next proudly telling Polly that he bought half a pound of beans “with my own money … all by myself”. Afterwards, while regularly producing children's books, she also worked as an editorial assistant for Penguin Books from 1966 to the early 1970s.

Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf: a feminist Little Red

On the one hand the wold plays a victim role constantly in Polly's life, on the other hand he is still a predator and she can't afford to let her guard down for a minute. At nine years old I had moved into a slightly bigger room, and this smaller one had become a junk room, or book room, or study, depending how kind you want to be. My favourite is “Monday’s Child”, in which Polly and the (not so stupid) wolf have a “literary discussion”: the wolf proves himself to be rather good at talking about poems, scoffing at the kind that merely rhymes and telling Polly that proper poetry should “make you feel you understand life for the first time”, before going on to recite a poem about cooking and eating children. So sure is she of her superior cleverness that she even invites the wolf to eat her up (he begs for a tiny bit of toffee first).Throughout the book Polly is tormented by a rather unpleasant wolf who constantly threatens to eat her! When Polly opens the door and finds a large black wolf standing on the doorstep waiting to gobble her up, it's the wolf that has the surprise when Polly invites him in!

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It would be excellent to use for role-playing (Drama) and exploring dialogue between characters (mini plays in groups). Some of the clever way Polly overcomes the wolf is by devising a number of delicious ways to prevent him from eating her! She attended St Paul's Girls' School, where she was taught music by Gustav Holst and became the school's organist. along the way the wolf tries to get ideas on how to catch Polly from reading fairy tales which is pretty funny!We build and maintain all our own systems, but we don’t charge for access, sell user information, or run ads. The wolf is simultaneously a dangerous wild animal, a sexual predator and an annoying little brother, slipping from one role to another within the space of a sentence. At first you think it is just going to be predictable children's stories in the vein of things like Brer Rabbit Book or Looney tunes (roadrunner for example).