THE TRUE STORY OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

When Wolf decides he’s “fed up with bein wicked all the time,” he appeals to Red Riding Hood for help. Her re-education program—which includes bathing regularly, helping with chores and a vegetarian diet (Chilli Con Carrots, anyone?)—is so successful, however, that Wolf surges to the top of the Forest popularity polls, much to her literally red-faced annoyance. Baruzzi and Natalini cram a lot into this modestly sized pop-up, deploying such metaliterary tricks as loose letters in envelopes and a newspaper alongside a fabric apron and a rattly school bus as interactive elements. In art, design and story, it comes across as something of an Italian, pop-up hommage to the classic The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, to which kids will find it an amiably twisted alternative, along with its companion pop-up, The True Story of Goldilocks (ISBN: 978-0-7636-4475-8). (Pop-up/picture book. 6-10)