The characters don't cooperate with the narrator in this metafictive spoof on the classic fairy tale. When the narrator introduces Little Red Riding Hood, she overhears from her home and calls out, "Hey! Someone's talking about us!" She comments on all of the narration, in fact, and the narrator responds to her in turn while trying, in vain, to maintain control over the story. Red, though savvy, is willing to play along and act out the story. But, to the narrator's dismay, the Big Bad Wolf is sick and has sent a pirate in its place, and the heroic woodsman couldn't make it, so Pinocchio shows up instead. The notion of eating Grandma doesn't sit well with the pirate, so the narrator can only relent as the characters make up their own happy ending. Colorful, dramatic, cartoony illustrations picture Red and her family with brown skin and puffy black hair; Red's sister, Blue, uses a wheelchair (disappointingly, it's not depicted as a self-propelled one); the pirate presents White and has a hook prosthesis. The many voices are differentiated by different typefaces, colors, and speech bubbles, giving the feel of a comic or play. Adults may have a difficult time performing them all as a read-aloud, but a child willing to alternate reading with an adult will enjoy the drama, and the jokes will be more fun that way too. Still, many will find this rewrite more thought-provoking than funny, and that's not all bad either. Use this wild ride to shake things up with common sense and creativity. (Picture book. 4-9) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The third in Funk's It's Not a Fairy Tale series once again upends a classic story, with the comedy this time being rooted in the device of a really unreliable narrator and characters who thwart his attempts to control the narrative. Here the narrator has trouble getting a brown-skinned Little Red Riding Hood to go along with the program of setting off into the woods to grandmother's house. Smart Little Red talks back, questioning the wisdom of going alone into the woods. There's a lot of comical back-and-forth between the two voices, including an "Are we there yet?" as Little Red makes her way through the twisty path. The narrator is bossy but can't control the fact that the wrong characters show up (e.g., Captain Hook appears instead of the Big Bad Wolf, who called in sick that day). The deep jewel tones of Taylor's illustrations are perfect at showing the deep hues of the woods, and the humorous details filling each page complement this fun retelling.