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Honestly, Red Riding Hood Was Rotten (The Story of Little Red Riding Hood as Told By The Wolf) by Trisha Speed Shaskan 

Review by Chris Singer

About the author:

Trisha Speed Shaskan is the author of over 30 books for children and has taught creative writing to children and adults for fifteen years. She is the recipient of a 2009 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Writers and is currently at work on a new novel for young adolescents entitled Sass.

About the book:

OF COURSE you think I did a horrible thing by eating Little Red Riding Hood and her granny. You don’t know the other side of the story. Well, let me tell you…

My take on the book:

Along the lines of a fractured fairy tale, Shasken brings readers a retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story, but this time the Wolf gets to finally give his point-of-view.

Young readers familiar with the story of Little Red Riding Hood will have a great time reading the Wolf’s version of the story. In this version, the Wolf is really a vegetarian who prefers eating apples to another else. Unfortunately it’s not apple season and Wolf has gone without food for weeks. When he happens upon Red Riding Hood, he finds her vanity annoying and comes up with a plan to eat her and her grandmother.

I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you, but readers will be eager to get the ending of the Wolf’s version. If the story doesn’t keep readers engaged, Gerald Guerlais’ illustrations certainly will. These are simply amazing and provide the perfect backdrop for this story. I love how the wolf is depicted with a goofy grin on this face, almost making him look innocent and unassuming.

Retelling fairy tales and other familiar stories from a different perspective and point-of-view are wonderful ways to help young readers develop literacy skills such as comprehension, storytelling, point-of-view and narration. As I read this, I couldn’t help thinking about all of the creative ways teachers could use this in their classroom. As a result, I was really pleased to see a series of questions included at the end of the book. In this “Think About It” section, readers have the opportunity to express their thoughts about the story by comparing it to the original version. Other exercises including thinking about how the point-of-view and narration affects the outcome of a story. These are excellent additions to the book and provide great opportunities for readers to work on writing skills as well.

If you think you might enjoy this, you can also check out Capstone Publishing’s website which features other books like this including Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks by Baby Bear; Seriously, Cinderella Is So Annoying by the Wicked Stepmother; and Trust Me, Jack’s Beanstalk Stinks by the Giant.

Note: I received an ARC of this book from Capstone publisher via Netgalley. I was not compensated in any ways for writing this review.