Little Red Riding Hood

by Sam McBratney, Emma Chichester Clark

A retelling of the well-known children's fairy tale. Little Red Riding Hood is going to visit her Granny, but who is that she meets along the way?

32 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2004

About the author

The 1943 born Northern Ireland native started writing children's books when he was a teacher in his thirties, with the aim of helping out students who had trouble reading. But he continued writing for a more-personal reason: "the act of imagining simply makes me feel good," he says. The fifty-seventh book of Sam McBratney's career, and his first book with Candlewick Press, was the much-loved GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU, which has sold an astonishing 15 million copies worldwide, and is available in 37 languages. "This is not the sort of thing you expect when most of your books have been remaindered," the author admits. "But, as the frog trapped in the milk discovered, if you keep going, sometimes you find yourself walking on cream cheese."

Where does Sam McBratney get his inspiration? "I told my children stories when they were young," he says, "so when I write I try to think of what they would have liked." But there may be another source guiding his writing as well. The author's father--who worked as a type compositor with the BELFAST TELEGRAPH, and whose favorite books were westerns--is the person Sam McBratney credits for giving him his love of the English language. "Most of my picture books--GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU, THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, JUST ONE!, and JUST YOU AND ME--explore the relationship between a big one and a wee one," the author notes. "The big one is not called the father in the stories, but that's what he is. Although my dad died before I became a writer, the father in my stories has a voice and a presence that he would have recognized and understood."

In addition to authoring many books for children, Sam McBratney wrote radio plays for adults and a prize-winning collection of short stories. He received a degree in history and political science from Trinity College, Dublin, and worked for many years as a teacher.

Reviews

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this book as it is a timeless children’s classic, I won’t therefore summarise the book as everyone knows this story.

The authors of this book have used large print so that it is easy for children to follow and there is always a picture on each page summarising the written text. If teaching in KS1 I would read the story to the children as the text is quite long in places and I think some children would feel a little deterred from reading it.

When coming to the end of the story I wondered how appropriate using such language as ‘…he gobbled her up there and then’ and ‘with one blow of his axe, he killed it stone dead’ was for younger children I thought that it might cause some distress and would be something that needed to be considered/aware of.

However it is as said a timeless children’s classic and one which every child can enjoy reading and having read too.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little Red Riding Hood By: Sam McBratney & Emma Chichester Clark, ISBN 0340877863, 1996. Little Red Riding Hood visits her Grandmother with her Mother a couple of times a week. One time when her Mother can’t come with her Little Red Riding Hood goes on her own but is met by a wolf. The wolf tries to trick Little Red into thinking he is Grandma and he eats her, but luckily a woodcutter is nearby and kills the wolf and gets Little Red out of the wolf’s belly and rescues Grandma.


**Another favorite book of mine when I was small

[Jeje]

never trust wierd people.
ar as people say wierdo.