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Little Red Riding Hood
By Wauwatosa Public Library
Friday, Feb 1 2008, 09:38 AM
Little Red Riding Hood is as timely in the information age as it was in 1697, when Charles Perrault published the first written version. Children of today would heed well its message, “Don’t give strangers personal information and addresses.” Perrault’s version differs greatly from the other well-known tales about a little girl with a red hood or cap. It ends abruptly without the wolf receiving just punishment. He eats the grandmother, waits in bed for Little Red Riding Hood and after playing the “Oh what big…” game with her, “he sprang out of bed and gobbled up Little Red Riding Hood.” This ending makes Perrault’s tale a cautionary one instead of a true fairy tale because it does not satisfy a child’s need for justice to prevail. Perrault’s fairy tales were written to amuse the French aristocracy and to caution young ladies about their behavior.
The Brothers Grimm’s version, Little Red Cap as it was originally known, is a true fairy tale because in spite of Little Red Cap’s disobedience, the tale ends happily. Little Red Cap dallies to pick flowers, thus offering the wolf an opportunity to meet her. Then she thoughtlessly gives him information about where her grandmother lives. The wolf eats the grandmother and Little Red Cap; however, a hunter arrives, guesses what happened, cuts open the wolf and rescues Little Red Cap and her grandmother. This account is gory and violent, but the happy ending reassures small children. Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, Trina Schart Hyman, Josephine Evetts-Secker have written adaptations that closely follow the Grimm’s tale. Cooper Edens selected a version in which Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother are not saved, but justice is served. Little Red Riding Hood’s father and his friends find the wolf “and killed him with axes, so that he was punished for his cruelty.”
The most frequently translated version is the one by the Brothers Grimm. Caperucita Roja is a Spanish translation. Lon Po Po: a Red Riding Hood Story from China tells about three good little sisters and a tricky wolf dressed up like their grandmother. Pretty Salma: a Little Red Riding Hood Story from Africa is about a girl who fails to heed Granny’s warning about talking to strangers. Ruby by Michel Emberly, Little Red Cowboy Hat by Susan Lowell, and Little Red: a Fizzling Good Yarn by Lynn Roberts are just a few among the many fractured fairy tales of Little Red Riding Hood.
“Little Red’s Most Unusual Day” is a fractured adaptation for opera that will be performed by the Florentine Opera Company at the Wauwatosa Civic Center on Saturday, March 1, 2008 from 1:30 – 2:15 pm. This children’s opera is best for students in Kindergarten through 8th grades, but everyone is welcome. Please register at the Children’s Reference Desk or call: 414-471-8486.
