Looking at myths, legends, fables, folk and fairy tales, fractured tales, fictional stories, and nonfiction from 1500 to the present, the author identifies and analyzes the cultural, social, and scientific knowledge embedded in and imparted through the image of the wolf in over 250 books.

From the villainous beast of "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Three Little Pigs," to the nurturing wolves of Romulus and Remus and Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, the wolf has long been a part of the landscape of children's literature. Meanwhile, since the 1960s and the popularization of scientific research on these animals, children's books have begun to feature more nuanced views. In Picturing the Wolf in Children's Literature, Mitts-Smith analyzes visual images of the wolf in children's books published in Western Europe and North America from 1500 to the present. In particular, she considers how wolves are depicted in and across particular works, the values and attitudes that inform these depictions, and how the concept of the wolf has changed over time. What she discovers is that illustrations and photos in works for children impart social, cultural, and scientific information not only about wolves, but also about humans and human behavior.

"Both scholars and environmentalists will be enlightened by this nuanced examination of a misunderstood creature and its impact in both the literary and natural worlds."- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books