Fairy Tale Mix Ups: Red Riding Hood Meets the Three Bears

Charlotte Guillain explores the idea of what happens when encounters with the Big Bad Wolf causes Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood not to follow their traditional story paths in her book Red Riding Hood Meets the Three Bears (Fairy Tale Mix-ups). This book ponders what might have happened if Red Riding Hood arrived at the Three Bears house mistaking it for her grandmother's house. Being a regular guest in someone else's home will she perhaps react differently to the bear's home than Goldilocks?

It is a bit disturbing that the wolf decides to head out after Goldilocks instead of Red Riding Hood and we are left wondering what happens to Goldilocks. Goldilocks is pretty tough, she destroyed the bear's home and walked away clean. So perhaps the wolf will wish he'd stuck with the original plan and gone after Red Riding Hood. If she ends up at Grandmas will Grandma be able to teach Goldilocks proper manners and behavior for visiting strangers?

This is a fairly simple story, but it actually can start some interesting conversations like the one above about what happened to Goldilocks. The author doesn't tell us, but it is a way to get students thinking about what the author doesn't tell us. The author doesn't tell us why Red Riding Hood behaves so differently than Goldilocks but it doesn't stop us from discussing why they acted so differently. Do you think there will be problems between the Three Bears and the Big Bad Wold in the future now that the Bear Family and Red Riding Hood have become friends?

Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood

Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hoodis the third story in Liesl Shurtliff's True Fairy Tale series.

This tale takes a slightly different turn from the earlier books in the series, which completely reexamine the characters Rumpelstiltskin in Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin and Jack in Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk giving us entertaining new stories.

We have already met Red Riding Hood in previous adventures and in this novel she teams up with Goldie. There are two twists in this story, but not enough to make it as engaging as the previous two novels. Red and her Grandmother are witches, but Red is struggling to embrace her powers and has almost killed her grandmother trying to adapt. That is not in the original tale. The second is that the wolf and Red are friends, he risks his life to save hers. Again this moves it away from the original, but not enough to make it interesting. These just aren't as the same kinds of bold changes made in the the previous novels that made them quick reads.

The crisis that moves the plot is Red's Grandmother is dying. Not able to face losing her, Red finally is compelled to consider magic as a solution to keeping her grandmother alive. However, as she and Goldie set out to find something to save her Grandmother she finds that kind of magic always has a hidden cost. The outcome is rarely what one hopes for and generally provides less than ideal results.

Along the path she meets people who help her come to terms the reality that her quest is not one that will benefit her Grandmother. A turning point comes when she discovers what the cost was for Beauty when she sought to stay young forever. On her return from that encounter she meets someone that has turned even darker pursuing eternal life and is only saved when she can fully embrace her own magic and stop fearing death.

This is an interesting tale, but not quite up to the standards set in the first two novels of the series. There are so many possibilities for an alternate story of Red's life. This one seemed a bit lacking.

Petite Rouge A Cajun Red Riding Hood

In Petite Rouge (Picture Puffins)Mike Artell retells the story of Red Riding Hood with animal characters and a Cajun setting.

Red Riding Hood, or Petite Rouge, is a goose who sets off with the traditional goodies to visit her sick grandmother. We meet not a wolf, but Claude the Gator, who also appears in Artell's Three Little Cajun Pigsas the villan.

Claude is no more successful with Red than he was with the pigs. There is also no vengeful woodcutter to kill the gator. Claude is distracted from his desire to eat Red and her grandmother after Red gets him to eat a bottle of hot sauce.

Artell has created another cute alternate fairy tale. Claude the gator makes an interesting substitute for the Big Bad Wolf.

Terrible Tales

Terrible Tales: The Absolutely, Positively, 100 Percent TRUE Stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Those Three Greedy Pigs, Hairy Rapunzel, ... and Gretel as Told at the Beginning of Time is a humerous retelling of the listed tales.

In a forward, the "author" Sir Jasper Gowlings explains how he is compelled by elfin law to share the stories given to him by Feliccitatus Miserius.

As someone who enjoys alternate fairy tales I was surprised at the convincing case they made for Cinderella being mean and the story not getting out because the Prince was equally horrid and people were glad they found each other to torture. The anarchist three pigs were original. I have seen a variety of defenses made for the wolves, but that was a new one for me. Hansel and Gretel provide a very new twist on the old tale. I thought Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel were the weakest of the tales.

My suggestion with all these kinds of stories is preview before using with children. Everyone is different in what evaluating what material is comfortable for use with children. These stories are definitely focused on an older age group than normally read folk tales. I plan on picking up a copy of this book as a gift, but these books are not quite as child friendly as some of the other alternate fairy tales I have reviewed.