Mr. Wuffles

Mr. Wuffles! 

by: David Weisner

Published: 2013

2014 Caldecott Honors Book

Mr. Wuffles! is a wordless picture book that follows a cat, Mr. Wuffles, who chooses to engage with a small spaceship and aliens. Mr. Wuffles and the aliens engage in a chase around the house as the aliens attempt to flee in their spaceship. The aliens and Mr. Wuffles face many obstacles, such as getting trapped, and the aliens teaming up with and befriending insects along the way until they are able to find their way out and mend their ship to return home. 

Response & Visual Literacy

The image used for the inside front cover to set the scene of the book. 

With any wordless picture book, the illustrations within this book are used to tell the entire story. The first place that gives the reader information about the book is the peritextual features. When looking at the illustrations on the inside front and back cover, the reader is able to see that Mr. Wuffles is unamused by his normal toys. This foreshadows that he is more interested in other living creatures, which the reader will later discover as they see the drawings done by the insects and small animals that depict Mr. Wuffles terrorizing them. The first page of the book consists of two different illustrations. The use of these two illustrations is intentional because it shows Mr. Wuffles body walking on the lefthand side, and aliens in their small space ship on the other side. This informs the reader that the main conflicts and events within the story will likely involve these two character groups, Mr. Wuffles vs. the aliens. As the reader progresses through the story, Mr. Wuffles is seen approaching the ship, then proceeding to play with the spaceship as if it is a toy. The aliens are speaking in symbols, which the reader is able to determine that they are exclaiming from inside the spaceship as it is being thrown around. As a result of this incident, the aliens discover their ship is broken, and they must embark on a mission to mend their broken ship. This is where the rest of the plot stems from. The background of all of the images throughout this text are bright, and resemble a realistic house. While this is a science-fiction wordless picture book, the author uses the background images and realistic characteristics of Mr. Wuffles to engage the reader to see a world they are familiar with. The images are displayed in many different ways throughout the book. Weisner had chosen to create each page where Mr. Wuffles is the focus with the full-bleed illustrations where the image fills the whole page. On the pages where the aliens are the focus, Weisner uses framing to create different images, and make the reader feel as though they are watching the aliens progress through their sequence of events.
 In terms of visual literacy, another element Weisner chose to focus on is color, size and shade. He chose to make Mr. Wuffles a dark shade of black, and create a large size contrast between the cat and the aliens. This is important to note because the cat's dark shade contrasts with the light-colored walls, as well as makes the cat a dark focal point on each page he is featured on. This brings the reader's attention to the large dark animal, and ensures that readers understand the importance of the cat's role within the story. This would be a beneficial concept to relay to students, and to bring their attention to what they notice in terms of the authors use of color, placement, and shade and how those factors shape their perception of the key elements and development of the story.