Red Riding Hood retold and illustrated by James Marshall

This is a much more lively and much less scary version than the original Perrault.  The illustrations are full of color and the characters are full of fun details.  Red Riding Hood’s house is covered in cats and the messy kitchen looks like it could be from next door even though the text tells you this was “A long time ago.”  Like any more modern child the girl is warned not to talk to strangers, but when she meets a charming wolf in the forest she lets her guard down.  The woods are filled with black sky but they emerge to blue skies again though black does reappear in the window looking into Granny’s house.  Granny is a sassy old lady and quite the book worm with her pile of books, but the tea and ink are spilled when she is eaten.  Then the wolf eats the girl of course and a whole box of dinner mints, no wonder he snored so loudly that the hunter heard him and knew it wasn’t Granny.  The hunter kills the wolf and cuts it open to rescue the pair, but of course it is all very clean though Granny mentions the inconvenience of not having been able to read in the stomach (probably my favorite part).  In the end you have the moral that Red Riding Hood promises never to speak to strangers again and you have her ignoring a quite charming alligator.  Overall a nice little one friendly version filled with silly bits and bright colors.