Review by Frank Plowright

There was so little to recommend about the first Rose Wolves book that a sequel seems improbable, and yet we have Out of the Blue, and it’s considerably longer. With the first fourteen pages occupied by a young girl getting out of bed and getting ready to leave the house, it soon becomes apparent why.

The lesson of the previous book was despite the girl loving the three-legged wolf with a rose for a tail, she had to let it loose back in the wild. However, it’s very happy that she and her mother have come to visit its cave, and they’re soon frollicking around and having a picnic.

Like the first volume, Natalie Warner opts to tell a story without words, and the only change to the childlike art is that here it’s white and blue rather than white and russet. Likewise, even allowing for this being intended for very young children the pacing is horrendously slow, like plodding along behind a sloth in the supermarket. Infants can surely understand the concept of turning a door handle without the requirement of four panels to show it.

What little plot there is concerns the changing of the seasons. The rose bush where the wolves frolic loses leaves in the autumn, and the wolf disappears before turning up at the girl’s home for the winter.

The Rose Wolf itself is a bizarre creation, but it’s a hangover from last time. Out of the Blue features barely any imagination applied to an exceptionally simple story with unattractive art.