Little Red Riding Hood

We all know the story of Little Red Riding Hood -- it's a classic and that's pretty much all there is to say about it. What really made it impossible for me to put the book back on the shelf -- or in fact out of my hand for the rest of the day -- are the absolutely magical illustrations. This book is art for children at it's best! The paintings are like beautiful music; the rendering of the figures and the way light is depicted is imaginative and poetic. At the same time the illustrations are very appropriate for small children, they are neither scary nor confusing, but rather of the stay-in-your-mind storytelling kind.

I must applaud another lovely rendition of the classic Little Red Riding Hood tale we have been given by Evetts-Secker and Ceccoli! This one is a pretty standard retelling of the story we've all grown up with...Little Red is the classic good girl whom no one really notices until she puts on that red cloak...she is unexceptional and there is nothign special about her, according to this version, prior to that. As a somewhat faceless archetypal good girl, she does as she's told (stay on the path, does what her elders tell her, ect...) and we find her, typically off to Grandma's house with a basket of fresh bread, new butter and sweet elderberry wine for her ailing grandmother. Little Red, having promised to obey and return home well before dusk, sets out on her trip...not too long after she meets the wolf and according to this version, she knows nothing about wolves and greets him with uncertainty but also curiosity. It is at this point in the this retelling that the story gets interesting (from my perspective anyway), the wolf, after hearing that Little Red is off to visit grandma temps her to take the left-hand fork in the path and sample its pleasures (a field of lovely flowers and birds in song on a warm, sunny day). While Red is otherwise engaged, the wolf slips off and does the usual thing with Grandma and then takes her place. After sampling the pleasures of the other path, she returns to the correct path, and proceeds to break just about every rule she was initially given when she set out on her trip. The story ends in the typical way...the Wolf eats Red, the Woodsman rescues Red and Grandma and they fill the Wolf's belly with sharp stones and sew it back up. The very end is just a little different from the watch out for strangers on the path message I've seen in most storybook retellings, in this version Red and Grandma sit down to feast together on the contents of the basket and Red shares with Granny the wonders she saw on the left-hand fork in the path and wonders whatever will happen should she meet another wolf out in the forest. Overall, it's pretty tame but does offer some details that are different from what is usually presented and which are interesting for the adult reading but simple enough to not upset those parents who'd rather read their children sanitized versions of fairy tales. I give it a B+, the story is good, it's relatively clean (despite the eating of Granny and Red), and offers some interesting details that would make for interesting discussion regarding the seductive nature of the wolf and the pleasures of breaking the rules and going on a different path. The main drawback in my opinion is the artwork; I just don't care for this style. Done in pastels and soft earth tones in a rather stylized way, it strikes me as too soft. I think that's more a personal ascetic though. This version of Little Red Riding Hood is definitely worth a read!