Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde

Vivian Vande Velde returns to the fun and funny type of retellings that she wrote in The Rumpelstiltskin Problem, this time turning her wit upon Little Red Riding Hood and the strange illogic therein.

In her introduction, Ms. Velde points out the various flaws of the traditional story: How on earth could a little girl not realize her grandmother was actually a wolf? Why would a mother send her young daughter out into the woods alone? And so forth.

Then, with a clever eye for detail, Ms. Velde reinterprets the story eight times, all in ways that follow the traditional story, yet also which make more sense to a modern reader. Recasting all the characters in various ways--sometimes the wolf is the hero, sometimes the red riding hood itself!--this quick read is sure to delight you and make you think of LRRH in a whole new set of lights.

Very enjoyable. Although this volume is slim, it manages to flesh out LRRH in unique ways: especially impressive considering how many retellings are out there.

You can check out Vivian Vande Velde's other works on her website.

The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde

Have you ever wondered about Rumpelstiltskin? What's up with that guy, anyway? Why does he WANT a baby? Why does the Miller make up such a blatant lie about his daughter? How dumb can the king be, to believe him? Why does the daughter agree to marry the king after he threatened to kill her?

Have you ever noticed how many PROBLEMS there are with this story?

Ms. Velde certainly did, and she set about to fix these problems, with six imaginative and hilarious retellings of the story.

This is an extremely quick read, and extremely entertaining. I hope you'll do yourself the favor of reading this book. My favorite versions of this story are always the ones where the Miller's Daughter runs off with Rumpelstiltskin. Velde may have a couple of those--and other fun variations, as well.