Little Red Reading Hood and the Misread Wolf

In this delightful retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”, the classic European fairy tale that first made its way into print in Charles Perrault’s 1697 Stories or Tales from Past Times, with Morals or Mother Goose Tales, author Troy Wilson includes all of the expected story elements, like the little girl with her red hood, the grandmother, the wolf and the woodcutter, the last being a character introduced in later versions of the tale. Because most young readers will likely have already been exposed to one of the more traditional tellings of the story, they may be lulled into believing that they already know what Little Red Reading Hood and the Misread Wolf will be about. And they will be wonderfully wrong!

Beginning with the book’s title and cover illustration, author Wilson and illustrator Ilaria Campana provide the first of numerous hints that their version of this traditional tale is going to be different from what readers may be expecting. The focal character is not “Riding” Hood but “Reading” Hood, and the garment she wears is not a riding cape with its attached hood, but just a hood, one sewn for her by her grandmother. On a first reading, only very sharp-eyed youngsters will note that Campana’s cover illustration reveals that Grandma had incorporated a white outline of a book on the left side of the red hood. However, for most of the book, Campana only shows Red from her right side, and so the book image, a clue to the story’s ending, cannot be seen. Like a pair of magicians, author and illustrator combine their talents to serve up some fun misdirection for readers who may think they already know where this story is going to go.
One day, when Grandma isn’t feeling well, Red, as the excerpt indicates, makes her grandmother a treat, something she will personally deliver. Campana’s illustration presents a contemporary Red, seated at a table in a modern kitchen. A fabric bag obscures what Red is making, but, along with two pens/pencils on the table, there is a tin labeled “COOKIES”. Of course, Red encounters a wolf as she walks through the woods, but, because “Red had read what to do if you encounter a wolf”, she maintained eye contact with the wolf and slowly backed away.” When the wolf continues to approach her, Red once again recalls the wolf-handling advice she had read and begins to wave her arms, clap her hands and throw rocks at the wolf who slinks away (to Grandma’s, of course). When Red arrives at Grandma’s house, she immediately recognizes the wolf-in-Grandma’s clothing. “Luckily, Red had read what to do if you encounter a wolf dressed as a grandparent. Hint that you know their secret by pointing out their big features.” Readers of the original tale will recognize the sequence of bigs – nose, ears, eyes and teeth – with the last one resulting in the wolf’s pouncing, not on Red – just her basket from which he extracts the treat Red had created for Grandma. No, not the perhaps anticipated cookies but, instead, a book, one that Red had made for her grandmother. “Oh, that new book smell!” he said. “It’s my favorite.” It seems that, all along, the wolf had nosed out the contents of Red’s bag and had only wanted to be read to.

The book concludes with Red, who loved reading, doing exactly that, with the wolf, her grandmother and a woodcutter being her audience. A woodcutter? He’s a character who appears visually late in the story and who has no lines of text. When Red believes she is about to be devoured by the wolf, a robin that has appeared in Campana’s illustrations throughout the book seeks out the woodcutter’s help, and, with ax in hand, he bursts into Grandma’s house. Most of this rescue-related action dramatically takes place on wordless pages.

Little Red Reading Hood and the Misread Wolf deserves many rereadings, if only to discover the many details illustrator Campana has added to enrich and extend Wilson’s text.