Little Red Riding Hood by Tyler (1992, Book, Illustrated)

ISBN 0307001342 – With so many re-tellings of this wonderful, classic story, I thought it best to try to keep the editions straight. This edition is retold by Mabel Watts, illustrated by Joe Ewers. It's hard to imagine anyone going wrong with Little Red Riding Hood; Watts cleaned up the violence in the original, a negative for fans of the classic tale, but maybe a positive for parents who worry about these things. Ewers' illustrations are nice, they vaguely remind me of the Saturday morning cartoons of the 1970s.

Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother isn't feeling well, so she and her mother pack a basket of goodies that Little Red Riding Hood will take to her. Cautioned to stay on the path and go directly to Grandmother's without talking to strangers, Little Red Riding Hood tries to do as she's told. The wolf, however, distracts her and convinces her to pick flowers for Grandmother, giving him time to get to Grandmother's house first. Grandmother is scared off by his arrival – will help arrive before Little Red Riding Hood is eaten up by the wolf posing as Grandmother?

I'm a fan of the original tale. I know there are parents who, wanting to keep their child from ever reading, seeing or hearing anything scary, have influence storytellers to re-write them, and that's great – for them. If you're one of them, this is a better edition for you. Grandmother, Little Red Riding Hood and even the wolf, all go unharmed. It's just not quite the same. To nitpick, I'm not overly familiar with life in a cottage in the woods, but I did find Little Red Riding Hood's addition of colored jelly beans to the basket for her grandmother a bit odd. They don't seem to be the sort of thing one would pick in the wild, and I think the stores are severely limited in the woods. An all right re-telling, geared toward over-protective parents, but not the story you remember.

- AnnaLovesBooks