Little Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Prairie Tale

Title: Little Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Prairie Tale
Author and Illustrator: Lisa Campbell Ernst
Publisher and date of Publication: Scholastic Inc., 1995
Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture Book
Age Range: K-2nd Grade

Summary: This story is about the little red riding hood story, just a new, updated version. In this story, Little Red Riding Hood lives on a prairie and decides to take wheat berry muffins and lemonade to her grandma. On the way, she runs into the wolf and tells the wolf where she is going. The wolf beats little red riding hood to grandma's house because the wolf was going to trick grandma and pretend to be grandma so he could get the muffins. When the wolf got to grandma's, she wasn't in the house but there was someone out on a tractor in the field. The wolf went to ask the tractor person where grandma was and it turns out grandma is on the tractor and she beats him up. Grandma and little red riding hood eat the muffins and lemonade and grandma opens a muffin shop with the recipe and hires the wolf to help her. Little red riding hood delievered the muffins that grandma and the wolf made.

Response: I really enjoy reading the revised version of traditional tales. This one is no different. I think this is a cute story for children to hear another side a of a story they are probably familiar with. The illustrations make Little Red Riding Hood look like a boy but with the hood up, you can't tell. I like the way the words are all on one page and have a white background to make it easier to read and the picture is easier to see since there isn't any words in the way. Of course you can make the connection to the traditional Little Red Riding Hood story from this one. The wolf also looks smaller and less scary in this story than the traditional story.

Teaching Ideas: With older children, you could use the venn diagram like we made this week. Younger children could also make up their own story from just the pictures. Also you could read the traditional story and this version, and have children make their own version of the story. I think many children would enjoy this story because it is familiar but has a different twist.