Review: Honestly, Red Riding Hood Was Rotten!
Honestly, Red Riding Hood Was Rotten!: The Story of Little Red Riding Hood as Told by the Wolf by Trisha Speed Shaskan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Honestly, I probably wasn't the intended audience for Trisha Speed Shaskan's take on Little Red Riding Hood.
Instead of the story focusing on the innocent, naive girl who goes off to the forest to visit with her equally self-absorbed grandmother, we see everything through the vegetarian wolf's perspective. He sees granny and Red as delicious apple-like beings bouncing around his field of vision. Not only do they force him to eat them by looking like apples, but they force him to eat nasty, nasty meat.
I adore fairy tales and re-tellings, so I was stoked when I saw this galley, but whenever I pick up a picture book, I ask myself if it would be fun to read to a little kid, and this one didn't do it for me. Children have a clear sense of justice. I think most of them would be really upset that the wolf at grandma and the pretty girl when he didn't even want them.
Still, it's an interesting idea. Some books in the series might work really well and others won't so much.