15.Little Red Riding Hood

#15 Little Red Riding Hood

Maggie Moore

Illustrated by Paula Knight

Picture Window Books, 2001

27 pages

I chose this book because the illustrations caught my attention. I always remember reading the story about “Little Red Riding Hood” growing up and when I saw this book I was curious to see how the story was told. Little Red Riding Hood is the main character in the story that is going to visit her grandmother in the forest. While she is on her way to her grandmother’s house she encounters a wolf that begins to question her. She tells the wolf she is going to her grandmothers to take her cake. The wolf takes a shortcut to the grandmothers house and acts like the grandmother. Little Red Riding Hood begins to remark about her grandmothers looks. The big bad wolf jumps up from the bed and chases her until the woodcutters come in to see what all the noise is. The woodcutters chase away the wolf and Little Red Riding Hoods grandmother comes out of the closet.

The illustrator in this book uses a variety of media. There are watercolors, pencils, crayons, cut paper, and collage used throughout the book. The illustrations look as if black ink was used to bring more definition to the details. The colors throughout the book are vibrant with a lot of attention to shading and outlining. The use of negative space throughout the illustrations keeps the readers attention on the story.

This book could be used in a first, second, or third grade classroom. The story of Little Red Riding Hood is a classic story that almost every child has heard at some point from their parents. The book could be used in the classroom for an art lesson, language arts lesson, or character development. The students could draw pictures about the story and create their own story line or change the ending. The book could be used in language arts to both change the viewpoint of the story and write it through the wolfs perspective, the woodcutters perspective, or the grandmothers perspective. Character development could be taught with this story by using the book to explain the dangers of talking to strangers in person and could even go as far as tying in internet safety with the story. The book has not received any awards.