Wesley and the Wolves

by Jenny Phillips, Kessler Garrity (Illustrator)

In this timeless tale, Wesley is a cheerful, good-hearted boy, but he likes to tease. When his teasing brings serious consequences, the villagers no longer trust him. How can he gain their trust again? Wesley wants to solve this problem, even if it takes hard work. He also wants to solve mysteries about two items he found: a key and a hidden door in a mountain. Kids will love following Wesley’s story while learning new reading skills along the way.

75 black-and-white pages
Hardcover with fabric bookmark
5.5”x8.5”

This read-together chapter book, along with Molly and the Falcon, is included in the Reading Booster C Books Set which is integrated with the Level 2 Language Arts Course. This book is perfectly aligned with phonics principles the child has learned and correlates directly with the Reading Booster C Cards.

74 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

As a Christian songwriter and music producer, Jenny Phillips has released over 27 albums and has shared her love of music across the world, speaking at over 1,100 events in 23 countries and selling over a million CDs. In order to reduce the stress and time commitments that naturally come with a music label, and so she could focus more on her young family, Jenny left her music label in 2011. She now offers her music for free on www.hislightmusic.com.

When Jenny's children began going to school, she turned toward another one of her passions—education. Jenny began homeschooling in an effort to provide a faith-based, high-academic education focused on building noble character. Not wholly satisfied with any curriculum she could find and deeply concerned about the loss of good literature in our world, she founded The Good and the Beautiful.

Jenny lives in Utah with her husband and five children. In addition to music, motherhood, and good literature, Jenny loves family history, gardening, traveling, and exercising. She is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but she enjoys working with people of many faiths as she shares her multi-denominational curriculum, rejoicing in the common good that all Christians share.

(from https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/about/)

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read with Sadie as part of her school. She enjoyed having designated parts for her to read and parts for me. Loved how Wesley made a mistake and over time was able to fix it.

[Elizabeth Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this with my daughter and she LOVED it! It was part of her LA program and was only meant to be read at certain times in the course, once she had mastered concepts. She was so so motivated to master things, when normally she would have gotten discouraged and given up, because she knew we couldn't read the next chapter until concepts had been passed off. Win win for us!

[April Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read with my son, he couldn’t wait to read each chapter! A decent message of losing trust and working hard to gain it back - it won’t happen overnight.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

k-2nd grade easy reader. Larger print for part of the page for the child to read, combined with regular print for the adult to read to encourage read togethers. We both liked the format and the story.

[Alainya Falk · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a reader, and the sections used to teach specific word rules are a total stretch (subject -- elephants and pheasants...?) and quite choppy. There are also some pretty big grammatical errors throughout the book.

[Kristah · Rating 5 out of 5]

We read this as part of our homeschool curriculum. Such a heartwarming story. A story of "the boy who cried wolf". Kids loved it.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was included in my daughter's level 2 language arts curriculum. This is a reader meant to be read with both parent/teacher and student. I can't say that my daughter always looked forward to reading this book. As a matter of fact, she often huffed and puffed when it was time to pull this out. However, there were also chapter breaks where she was excited to find out what was going to happen next. Wesley and the Wolves is essentially a boy-who-cried-wolf story. Wesley literally cries wolf, but instead of having multiple instances of lying, Wesley really only lied one time, but this book shows that once trust is lost it can be really difficult to win back. I loved how Wesley did in fact work to earn trust back with every single person that he broke trust with. A great message in this story.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely love TGTB's language arts, although it's been challenge in some ways because I feel like the content is advanced while the reading lessons are a year or so behind my daughter's ability. This book was a little too easy for her to read, but we still adored Wesley and the Wolves because it's a sweet story and because I love how it's laid out for the parent and child to read together. I wish I had more books in this format. I also wish this book had been edited a little better. The subplot didn't fit into the flow of the story and there were several sentences that didn't read naturally and gave the book a self-pubbed feel that lacked some finesse.
However, overall, I definitely plan to read this again with my next child but perhaps at a younger age.

[GardeniaPearl · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a vocabulary book, I suppose this meets the goal of having kids read the words they have just learned. The writing is simple and understandable. My kid liked it and most kids will probably also like it.

However, this is a poor retelling of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. The plot line is scattered, the parents do not discipline their children, there was no research put into depicting Medieval Europe accurately, and the dialog and internal thoughts of the characters sound like stilted caricatures instead of real conversations.

Am I demanding too much of a book that isn't meant to be a real story? Probably, but I have to get my rant out anyways. If you're a parent like me who couldn't stand it, you're not alone.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A read together book that alternates between child and parent. I like that the font for the child is larger and there is more spacing. There were days my son got tired of how much it had him read but overall it was a good balance. There is a strong message about losing trust and that regaining it will not happen overnight or without effort.

[Tiffany C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 4 year Old's Review: He liked the moment of conflict. He liked the characters. He was happy with the ending and the message but was disappointed by one aspect of the ending - involving the treasure. He liked that I read some and then he read some instead of him reading it all.

I thought it had a nice message and was perfect for his age and reading level :) which is 4 years old and level 2

[Emery · Rating 4 out of 5]

He discovered it takes time to build back trust.

[Autumn Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book and somewhat expanded tale of “the boy who cried wolf.” Fabulous reader for kids.

[The Daleys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet book in our curriculum set, my kids loved it in 2nd grade.

[Dawn Brinks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wholesome book about a boy who cried wolf and had to work to regain the trust of the village.

[Lindsay Meek · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son really enjoyed this book! He loved the lesson and that there was a happy ending. He didn’t like finding out there wasn’t any treasure though.

[Courtney Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful story! Great lessons to be learned!

[Brittanie Hendrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great tandem read with my 8 year old. Lot's of good vocabulary and lessons to be learned.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jenny Phillips does it again! We read this in correlation with my 3rd grader’s homeschool curriculum (The Good and The Beautiful). While it nods to “The boy who cried wolf” it definitely has another storyline, and as always, encourages forgiveness and teaches the importance of truth telling. We really enjoyed the switch off between parent and child with taking turns in reading. My 8 year old loved it!

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

8/7/25 Went through this again with the next child - still so good!

2/17/25 A cute book with 10 short chapters split between child and parent reading portions. Black and white drawn pictures every few pages. A telling of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" with Christian messaging on repentance and making amends. Though written by a professing Mormon, the message is solid. Pray for Jenny Phillips - unless she is a great deceiver, she shows time and again that she seems to understand much truth. I would love to see her come out of Mormonism and embrace the true God of the Bible!