Customer Reviews

Little Red Riding Hood

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4 star:		(3)
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You can appreciate a person's craft and talent without ever really appreciating their style. I mean, no one is ever going to say that Jerry Pinkney isn't one of the most talented artists working in the field of picture books today. No one. Still, I've always enjoyed the man's ideas far more than his actual products. I eventually decided that this was because my eyes prefer thick bold lines in children's books, whereas Mr. Pinkney more of the soft sketchy lines and details type. Due to the prolific nature of his work, as a children's librarian I've recommended and run into a fair amount of Pinkney titles without ever really finding one I could call my favorite. Maybe Sam and the Tigers (an alternative version of Little Black Sambo) but even that seemed a better idea than final product. Then I ran across his "Little Red Riding Hood". I can't really pinpoint why I like this book so much more than his previous works. It's not as if his style has changed a whit. He hasn't done anything significantly different with this tale. The story is the classic version we've all learned at some point, but set against an entirely new season and including some of the original tale's darker elements. Squeamish parents beware. Jerry Pinkney is not afraid to go to original source material if he has to.

You know the drill. There was once a little girl whose mother made her a brilliant red cloak, giving her the titular nickname we've all grown to know and love. One winter's day her grandmother comes down with a cold, so Little Red is sent off to take her some warm food. On the way she meets a charming wolf that persuades her to ignore her mother's advice and gather some firewood for her granny. Then the wolf eats the grandmother, does the standard "what big eyes you have bit", and swallows up Little Red to boot. Fortunately a hunter hears the wolf's acoustically impressive snores, kills the furry creature, frees the two women from its stomach, and a happy ending is had by all. The end.

I had a woman in my library the other day looking for good versions of The Three Little Pigs. When I pulled four or five different styles, she was horrified to find that in many of these books the pigs either get eaten or end up eating the wolf at the end. So too will a certain strain of parent be shocked at the story found in this fairy tale. Wait... the wolf actually EATS Little Red and her grandmother? And a woodsman cuts them out of the stomach? In a children's book??? But of course they are. In fact, if you want to make a case for this book to the easily shocked (and fairy tale ignorant) parents who encounter it, mention that Pinkney has actually softened the tale a little. He could have included the detail where the grandmother sews stones into the wolf's belly and it crawls away to starve to death. Instead, this version simply has the woodcutter kill the wolf and free the people in its belly. The illustrations, for their part, display these scenes without going into gory details. The picture accompanying the wolf's demise is just the shadow of the woodcutter against a wall, his axe raised wildly above his head. In contrast, the devouring of Little Red is a dramatic two-page spread of the wolf leaping out of granny's bed directly at you, the reader. There can be no doubt that at that particular moment, you have become the heroine at the story's most frightening moment. And THAT is good storytelling, my friends.

Pinkney once said that drawing snow was far more difficult for him than drawing much of anything else. The lack of color is what kills him. When you view his magnificently detailed wildernesses and sprawling landscapes, you understand his concern. Sometimes nothing is harder to draw than something. What sets "Little Red Riding Hood" apart from the pack is this same snow, though. I mean, when you think of fairy tales you think of summer settings. Only stories like "The Snow Queen" or "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" and their ilk take into account months when the trees aren't green and lush. Pinkney is certainly the first person that I know of to set this tale in a wintry setting. That means, of course, that he had to adjust the story's elements a little. Instead of being told by the wolf to pick flowers, Little Red is encouraged to collect firewood. Other factors make more sense. People tend to grow ill in the winter months, so it makes perfect sense for Little Red's mother to send her daughter off with hot soup and raisin muffins.

As one of those artists that model their characters on real people, Little Red and her mother were indeed based on a woman and her daughter than Mr. Pinkney knew. The fact that this is a biracial family is just a nice plus, really. Ask me to come up with fairy tales featuring multi-ethnic families and I would admittedly be a little hard pressed. Kudos on that account and kudos on the illustrations in general. One of the joys of using all this white is that Mr. Pinkney's carmine red cape stands out even more strongly than it would against lush green foliage. Your eye is instantly drawn to the color, no matter what other action there may be elsewhere. I appreciated that the wolf was drawn as a real creature too. There's nothing cartoony to it. Even when it slips into the grandmother's spare hat and nightgown, what you are facing is a wild animal through and through. It's a balance between the realistic and the kid-friendly that allows the book to work. Too scary and you lose your audience. Too silly and you betray the author's style. Pinkney even gets cinematic with some of his scenes. When the wolf is about to enter the house you see the back of it at the door, and a shadow against the wood that shows what is going to occur mere moments in the future. And the aforementioned shadow of the woodcutter whacking the beejezus out of the wolf felt just a mite bit Hitchcockian.

If you were to ask me what my favorite picture book version or variation of the Little Red Riding Hood story was, I would still have to side with Ed Young's magnificent Lon Po Po. Pinkney, however, is now running a close second with this lovely new adaptation. There may be people out there who squirm and squeal at the "Grimm" nature of this story, but people have always felt this way about the Little Red Riding Hood story. There's a reason that the film Hoodwinked and the Sisters Grimm book series cast Little Red as the villain. Fairy tales aren't the light and fluffy balls of sugar people would have of them all the time. Sometimes it's nice to find a version that shakes things up a bit. Credit Jerry Pinkney, then, with some serious two-handed shaking.

This is a beautifully illustrated and traditional retelling of Red Riding Hood. This is a must have for your School Library. The wintery forrest scenes make me think that it would make a great holiday gift as well!

I have poured over picture book after picture book trying to find classic tales that were not watered down, facetious tongue-in-cheek retellings of tales that were meant to disturb and teach. This is a beautiful telling of Little Red Riding Hood. I get so tired of cartoon-y illustrations or the new computer-generated "art". This is a beautifully painted story with the classic gore so needed in a folk/fairy tale.

I won't go into the morals of letting children watch TV, but then not allow them to experience the triumph of good over evil in fairy tales, but I will say that children need this kind of dramatic resolution in a story.

Loved this book!

The illustrations in this book are just lovely. This version might be a little much for very young readers (the wolf eats granny and the woodsman has to cut her out), but fans of old-fashioned classics should add this to their children's bookshelves.

Never can have too many picture books of one's most favorite old fairy tales. Pinkey's Little Red is so beautiful - her hair texture & skin being most perfect (like our family's.)

A girl I babysat was obsessed with checking this book out of the library, so of course I had to get her her own copy. The illustrations are amazing.