Mr Wuffles
By: David Wiesner
Publisher: Andersen Press Ltd., London, 2013 (This version from 2014)
Format: Hardback (version shown is a pocket edition)
A celebration of cats and art
David Wiesner is well-known to most readers of silent books. He is a three-time Caldecott award winner, one of the winning titles being Mr Wuffles. Wiesner's inspiration for Mr. Wuffles was his own cat, Cricket and its complete lack of interest for any store-bought toys.
Mr. Wuffles is introduced already on the cover, looking as bored and disdained as only a cat can do. When opening the book, the reader finds a whole row of cat toys, price tags still on, all completely ignored by Mr Wuffles who walks right by them. The object to finally catch Mr. Wuffles interest is not a toy, but a tiny spaceship with aliens inside. In order to escape and conquer Mr. Wuffles, the aliens make friends with local ants, using art to overcome the potentioal problem of not speaking the same language.
For a silent book, Mr. Wuffles has an unusual amount of dialogue. The humans are speaking (a tiny bit of) human language, the ants spead ...well, ant language. The cat is mostly silent, apart from a frustrated "Mroww!" at the end of the book.The aliens communicate using a wonderful language of visual symbols. Wiesner worked with a linguist to make these symbols, and they are very interesting to study: Notice for example, the difference when the alien engineers speak, their language being way more complex than that of the common aliens.
Mr. Wuffles can be read and interpreted in so many ways: As story of collaboration, of finding friendship through a common enemy, of the importance of art in human/alien/bug interactions... Wiesner guides the readers' pace by using different formats: full spreads, one-page pictures and cartoon-like spreads with lots of panels. The grey background on some of the panels is very interesting, it seems to symbolize being hidden, either inside the spaceship or inside the hole in the wall.
Because of the abundance of languages used, and the many possibilities for different interpretations, Mr. Wuffles is an excellent book for multicultural and multilingual groups, and of course for cat lovers of all ages. The pictured version is a paperback, but I would recommend getting the hardback if possible - this book is bound to be read and re-read lots of times - you'll want a sturdy binding.
In time, we will review all of Wiesners brilliant silent book works, all so please stay tuned for more!
