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Little Roja Riding Hood (2014)

by Susan Middleton Elya(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

039924767X (ISBN13: 9780399247675)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Putnam Juvenile

review 1: Little Roja Riding Hood, written by Susan Middleton Elya and illustrated by Susan Gurvara, is a Spanish twist on the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red gets sent off to bring her ill grandmother a basket of goodies and a thermos of soup. On her journey, she runs into a wolf who was hiding around a tree. His nosey self asked her where she was headed, and when she explained about her ill grandmother he gave her a suggestion. He told her to pick some colorful flowers. When she agreed, she took of her red coat and bent down to begin picking. Just then, the wolf snuck away with her coat and headed for Grandma's house. He pretended to be little red and attempted to eat Grandma. Just then, the unexpected happened. This story is unique. Spanish/English cross ove... morer stories do not get as much credit as they should. This author knew what she was doing and excelled. Starting off with a glossary in the front of the story with translations for all of the Spanish terminology allows the read to prepare before diving in. From here, the author uses context clues to help the reader along. The audience does not need to know much of the Spanish language to fully enjoy this story. The supported guides throughout the story makes learning a new language fun. I also thought it was clever to use a commonly known story to provide some form of comfort and prior knowledge while presenting a new theme. The illustrations in this story were extremely complex and intense. There is a wide range of color and textures used throughout that make each image overwhelm your senses. Gurvara had a sense of humor when adding little details in the background. Things like a Spanish soap opera on the TV or putting eyes on the sunflowers really livened up the pictures in this story. There was also a couple common trend throughout. Each page has either the three blind mice, evil fairy guys, or black birds that carry ribbons with little side comments. These add a fun extra for the audience to look at while going through the story.
review 2: Once upon a time, I might've passed over a bilingual version of Red Riding Hood. Most of my community speaks English. But now I'm finding that versions like this work on a variety of levels for all kids. Yes, kids who speak Spanish will like hearing and understanding both languages. But for my English-only speakers, reading this one after hearing an all English traditional retelling makes for a great lesson on using context clues to decode unfamiliar words. Plus, kids love learning new languages and their brains soak up foreign words like sponges. Definitely adding this one to my mix. less

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