You may not have heard of it yet, but Wolfblood is the hottest thing on British TV for tweens and also for their parents.
With the show now in its third season, and popular enough to spawn an official glossy magazine that launches this week, I wanted to take a closer look.
At its heart Wolfblood follows the stories of Maddy and Rhydian, two teenage “wolfbloods” who can turn into wolves at will. The show initially followed their attempts to balance regular human lives with their secret identities. Maddy comes from a family of wolfbloods and was aware of her identity before she began transforming, while Rhydian grew up in foster care and was therefore unaware of his heritage. Later series examined the bonds between the human friendly “tame” packs like Maddy’s family, wild packs like Rhydian’s biological family, and lone wolves, along with uncovering a conspiracy and more.
There are naturally parallels to be drawn between Wolfblood and other supernatural series aimed at young teens—most obviously Twilight. The wolfbloods can transform at will making them closer to Twilight‘s shapeshifting wolves than to true werewolves, and the different groups reminded me of the various vampires in that saga: the human-friendly Cullens, those who consider humans no more than food like the Volturi, and lone ranging individuals like Alistair.
Plus, like the Twilight Saga, Wolfblood appears to have found an audience further afield than just the tweens it is aimed at. The show airs on CBBC, a BBC channel aimed specifically at children aged 6 to 12, and both of my nieces (conveniently aged six and 12 themselves) are deeply into it, but then again, so is their mother which is something of a rarity for the channel. In fact when I asked them if they would like to look at the new magazine for me I’m not sure who was more excited!
Totally Wolfblood Magazine includes news about the show, behind the scenes information, quizzes, puzzles, and posters. I asked my eldest niece to give me her thoughts on it. She absolutely loved the magazine overall, most of all the behind the scenes features, but she also raised a few negative points. It unfortunately introduced her to spoilers for the first time thanks to its “sneak peak” section which included pictures from the show’s third season which is currently on air. The season doesn’t conclude until the end of the month but the pictures gave away some upcoming plot points.
She was also unimpressed that the posters were backed with parts of the magazine she would rather not remove and asked why they couldn’t have been printed on the inside of the cover & back page so they could be hung up without removing important sections. The six year old was particularly taken with the free stationery set, but their mother was somewhat unhappy with the number of adverts. Four full pages were completely taken over by them, that’s over 10% of the entire magazine.
When I asked if they would continue reading future issues, both girls said that they would like to but their mother, even as a fan herself, doubted that she would be willing to pay £3.99.
Wolfblood continues to grow steadily more popular, it is now the most watched children’s show in Britain, and the addition of an official magazine helps to build its fandom.
In the USA the show airs on the Disney Channel and is now available on both Netflix and iTunes. If you’re looking for something supernatural for the whole family this Halloween then definitely give it a try. If you already have a Wolfblood addict in your home then they will love the new magazine.
GeekMom received this item for review purposes.
