Josephine Evetts-Secker

I enjoyed this book for several reasons. The main message of the book was to provide the reader with a variety of family-themed folk tales from around the world. I really liked that the book was a collection of stories from around the world. This way, the reader could read folk tales from a variety of cultures and compare and contrast the stories. I enjoyed that the stories all had the same theme of family, particularly mother daughter relationships, but presented them in different ways. I show more liked that underneath each folk tale title the nationality of the story was listed which gave the reader some background knowledge on the culture. I also enjoyed that the illustrations corresponded with each story and the culture of that story. I like that the colors used in the stories also change according to the story. For example, the Native American folk tale features more browns, reds and blues while the Japanese folk tale featured pale reds and pinks and yellows. This helps set the mood of each story and gives the reader a visual image of that culture. The language would be appropriate for upper elementary readers. For example, the stories use words and phrases such as “sorrowful” and “feeble”. Younger children might need to use context clues to determine what some of these words mean. show less

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 show more 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! show less

Soft, almost blurred illustrations with colors that felt very Italian to me. It looked like a fairy tale set within a dream. I had a sense that it was a warm season, summer maybe. Typical retelling, though. LRRH and the young woodcutter filled the wolf's belly with rocks before sewing him up. Upon waking, the wolf dropped to the floor, dead.

3 stars

elementary, 3starP. I don't think this book is explained by radical change -- it is a fairly traditional re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood. The illustrations were beautiful, but didn't contribute to changing formats, perspectives, or boundaries.