When I Was a Wolf

About this book

Jasmine loves wolves and enjoys sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm with Mum. However, everything changes when Mum falls ill. 

Gran moves in to look after them both, but she does things differently to Mum, and Jasmine becomes anxious and overwhelmed. When her best friend Ella is asked to buddy a new girl at school, Jasmine feels left out and struggles to manage her emotions. 

Gran signs Jasmine up for art club, giving her a welcome escape from her worries. There, she meets artist Ali, who helps her to make a magnificent wolf puppet for the town’s forthcoming lantern parade. Jasmine longs for Mum to be well enough to attend the parade, but when events take a different turn, her anger and hurt threaten to ruin everything. 

This tender tale explores a range of complex emotions and demonstrates how creativity can help people to manage negative feelings in constructive ways. Engaging black-and-white illustrations, which beautifully capture Jasmine’s feelings of joy, sadness, loneliness and anger, will help readers to visualise the characters, setting and puppetry described in the story. 

Expertly edited to aid comprehension, with an uncluttered layout and dyslexia-friendly font, this accessible short novel is full of hope.