Little Red Rodent Hood

Ursula Vernon is, as always, a delight.

In this case, she takes the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and turns it inside out and sideways, with wonderful results.

Princess Harriet Hamsterbone and her friend Wilbur respond to a plea from a very odd young hamster girl, dressed all in red. and mount their riding quail to go to the aid of her grandmother. Grandmother's cottage in the woods is surrounded by weaselwolves of nefarious intent...

Well, of course they have nefarious intent. Weaselwolves eat hamsters, right? So Harriet and Wilbur are quite puzzled to find the weaselwolves hiding behind trees, apparently afraid of Red.

What's going on? The more they investigate, the stranger things seem, and the less certain Harriet is that Red is the show more one in need of help.

This is just a lot of fun. If you have kids in the intended middle grade age range, use them as your excuse. If not, well, read or listen to it anyway.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. show less

A cute little girl in a red hood comes to Harriet for help, but something about her strikes Harriet as odd. Nevertheless, she (and Mumfrey, and Wilbur, and Hyacinth) go through the woods to confront the were-weasels...but, as readers may have come to expect from this series, the villains aren't who we might think. This time, it's Red's grandmother, who's furiously bitter about being turned into a were-hamster, and who has been using Red's hypnotic stare to tame the were-weasels and sell them as pets. Harriet is strongly anti-selling-people, so she teams up with were-weasel Gray to change Red's grandmother's mind. (Wilbur again provides the cautious voice of reason every time Harriet begs Gray to turn her into a were-hamster also, so she show more can be invincible again.)

Another fun subversion of a classic, though I felt this one was slightly less complex and a bit more repetitive than the previous ones. Perhaps it will grow on me with additional readings/listenings. show less

I would just like to pause here to address something I've noticed over the past few years. Kids have shorter attention spans, struggle to read, and fewer kids read for pleasure. This has been shown in various studies. More and more young adult books, massive fantasy tomes, and lengthy books are being published. This is just my observation. When you try to offer a shorter book to a middle grade student (remember middle grade is ages 9-12 or 3rd to 6th grade) the response I almost always get is "that's a baby book" or "that's too easy for her" or "he needs to read something challenging". Even if the kid hates to read, struggles to read, or would rather do pretty much anything else. Basically, why does it have to be 400 pages long to be a show more "real" middle grade book? Where are the short books? Where?

Well, here's one of them! In Princess Harriet Hamsterbone's latest adventure, she meets a sweet, helpless little hamster in a red cloak who is being menaced by horrible weasel-wolves! Naturally, Harriet is ready to help, even though she finds the little girl (Red is her name? Really?) to be rather annoying. But there's something funny going on with the weasel-wolves, the "helpless" little girl, and her mysterious grandmother. Harriet is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery - after all, she only attacks bad people (except for that one time with the really realistic dragon costume and everyone apologized so it was ok). But just who is the bad person?

With a blend of art, comics, and wit, Vernon presents a story that, on the surface, is about a princess who does her duty (especially when it involves sword-work), and enjoys a good fraction or three-fifths. Underneath, there's a repetition of the themes in the previous books; not judging by appearances, realizing that people all have different strengths and interests, and taking time to understand different people. However, this book adds some interesting notes about acknowledging and accepting your own identity. This has never been a problem for Harriet (naturally, she's awesome and she knows it!) but there's a whole thing about if you've been turned into a were-wolf-weasel, you have to accept it and move on, or at least get some tactful therapy from Prince Wilbur, who is good at that kind of thing.

Verdict: I think Whiskerella might still be my favorite, but this is a strong addition to an excellent series. Buy them!

ISBN: 9780399186585; Published September by Dial; Review copy provided by the publisher and donated to the library (I also bought a library copy and another copy for myself!) show less

Weird and interesting story - the usual twist on Little Red Riding Hood, and then an extra half-turn because it's Ursula. The wolves (weasel-wolves) ask Harriet for help against the wicked little girl who's making them disappear...and then things get complicated. Who's the bad guy here? The answer is not as straightforward as usual (and it's not all that straightforward in most of Harriet's books!).

This concludes Harriet’s story on a satisfying note but the preceding adventure didn’t appeal to me as much as the other books did.

I suspect it just wasn’t written for me -- not the person I am now, nor the little girl I used to be. The dedication reads:

For all the little girls who grew up wanting to be werewolves.

I never wanted to be a werewolf.

It's Little Red Riding Hood as you've never seen her before in this funny, feminist spin on the fairy tale, from award-winning author Ursula Vernon

Most monsters know better than to mess with Princess Harriet Hamsterbone. She's a fearsome warrior, an accomplished jouster, and is so convincing that she once converted a beastly Ogrecat to vegetarianism. So why would a pack of weasel-wolf monsters come to her for help? Well, there's something downright spooky going on in the forest where they live, and it all centers around a mysterious girl in a red cape. No one knows better than Harriet that little girls aren't always sweet. Luckily there's no problem too big or bad for this princess to solve.

Really enjoyable conclusion to the Hamster Princess series, and while I would love more of these books I'm also happy with where the series ends. This series ranks among my favorite fairy tale retellings. Definitely recommended for fans of fairy tales, cute cartoon animal art, and humorous books.