Taking on Defenseless Opponents

Because there is a plethora of children's books out there, it's inevitable that some of them will be not so good.

Because I am forced to read many of them, over and over again, you must share my pain.

There is a category of children's books that are written in verse. Sometimes these stories do not demand to be written in verse--perfectly acceptable prose versions exist in abundance. Still, someone got it in their head that the world needed a sing-songy rhyming version.

Which brings me to the pop-up book of Little Red Riding Hood (sorry about the dull page--it took quite a bit of work to track down this baby).

You know you're in trouble when you don't even have an author. The only information given about its publication comes in the following kid-friendly credit on the back:

"Published by Playmore, Inc., Publishers and Waldman Publishing Corp."

This is written in the world's tiniest font; I actually had to use an electron microscope to make out the copyright notice. Nothing says, "Fun family values" than a mass-produced corporate fairy tale, eh?

The book itself is about the size of a postcard and printed vertically--you raise each succeeding page upwards. This is odd. The entire book is five pages long, each accompanied by various figures that do not so much "pop up" as stiffly rise from the page. The art isn't awful, but I'd doubt if it's won any prizes. It's warm and simplistic, with rosy-cheeked characters that look for all the world like those from old Rankin-Bass animated specials (not the stop-motion ones; the cartoons, like Frosty the Snowman). Occasional freakish eye depictions are evident; the wolf's eyes are far too large and human, giving him a disturbingly sultry look, and Little Red Riding Hood's eyes are like cobalt diamonds, complete with cuts, so that she looks like she's high on crank most of the time.

The thing that really makes my head hurt about this rendition, though, is the text. Here it is, in full:

"'Grandma isn't feeling good
And she's all alone in her house in the wood.
Take her this basket with good things to eat
And don't talk to strangers you happen to meet.'"

This isn't awful, though it's entirely unmetrical and clunky. The odd part is that the speaker isn't identified. Like the other books in this series we have, you have to be familiar with the original story already to understand the book. The children this is aimed for--maybe 2-4--don't know this story most likely. I kind of wondered what I would think was happening if I didn't bring my preconceived ideas to the table. Something surreal, I should imagine. Though I don't remember the mother's admonition to avoid talking to strangers--that sounds like a modern interpolation to me.

"Red Riding Hood promised to obey.
She stopped to pick flowers along the way.
But when a wolf stepped suddenly out of the shade
Red Riding Hood forgot the promise she made."

I'm not certain how stopping to pick flowers constitutes obeying her mother's command; sounds like she's slacking off to me. This page has the aforementioned doey-eyed wolf and crack-frazzled LRRH eyes, so it's fairly bizarre. Li'l Red looks much more dangerous here--I'd advise the wolf to avoid eye contact and flee as soon as possible.

"The sly wolf ran on ahead.
He plopped himself in grandma's bed.
He even put on grandma's clothes
And pulled the covers up over his nose."

Now the story really starts coming off the rails. What the hell? The writer here seems to have forgotten to include the conversation between Li'l Red and the wolf. Any poor kid has got to be wondering how, exactly, she "forgot the promise she made." They don't even mention that there was any exchange of words. And without that, how the heck did the wolf know about grandma? This is so confusing...

The picture on this page shows a slightly concerned looking Grandma hiding in the closet. The whole "I ate your grandmother" thing has been dropped here, I guess. The whole story has been rendered bloodless, which removes any interest I had as a young man in what is about to happen. The wolf's later threats seem much more credible if he's got your old granny in his stomach.

"Red Riding Hood knew something was wrong
When she saw his teeth, so sharp and strong.
'Grandma, what big teeth you have!' she cried out in fear.
Said the wolf, 'The better to eat you with, my dear!'"

Just try to read those last two lines and make them come out right. It's a tough job. The wolf looks so cuddly in this picture that you just can't imagine he's going to do more than give Red Riding Hood a big ol' hug; meanwhile, Red throws her basket in the air and dumps out its contents, reavealing small brown globs that look nothing so much like feces. Here, grandma--have some dung to make you feel better!

"Red Riding Hood screamed as loud as she could.
In rushed a woodsman, who'd been chopping wood.
The wolf ran away. They were out of danger
And Red Riding Hood never again spoke to a stranger."

Again, read those last two lines and try to keep them from falling dead onto the page like a handful of iron slugs. They just make for bad poetry, but the computer which spits this drek out just knows that the last words rhyme, so it's got to be good.

Our moral for the day is hammered home once more. And the wolf lives on to prey on grandma another day...

Our last note: In German, Frosty the Snowman is Frosty der Schneemann.

Geshundheit.