LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

Luminous colors, a deft combination of visual delicacy and richness, and a touch of surrealism make Little Red Riding Hood’s adventure a glowing feast for the eyes. Ceccoli uses acrylics, pencils, and oil pastels on canvas to create entrancing art with a soft texture. The canvas underneath is faintly and beautifully visible. The wolf curls around three sides of a page, serpent-like, almost surrounding Red. As they saunter down the path, fantastical trees tip precariously and diagonally above them. Peculiar tree shapes and impossible angles of growth reveal the potential danger of Red’s decision to stray from the path. Evetts-Secker’s clear, thoughtful text has Red bringing Granny “some fresh bread, some new butter and some sweet elderberry wine,” and the ending is Grimm, not Perrault: a woodcutter is savior, and Red fills the wolf’s belly with rocks. Gorgeous and shining with light throughout. (Picture book/fairytale. 3-6)