Little red riding hood book characters

Reader Interactions

There are variants of the story all over the world, some going back many centuries — what tends to vary is the nature of the beastie that ends up eating poor old Red. This version of the story is probably one of the most well-known, apart from the Brothers Grimm adaptation. Red is as good, kind, sweet and passive as most traditional fairy tale heroines, doing very little for herself — her mother sends her to visit her grandmother, the wolf tricks her into staying off the path and then into getting eaten. Perrault adds a specific moral to his version of the story — he says in no uncertain terms that young ladies should not talk to strangers in case men take advantage of them. This puts the whole story in a completely different light, making it much more conservative and dependent on outdated sexual morals.

First, a little history. The first written version is by Charles Perrault and was clearly a moral tale with no happy ending. Little Red Riding Hood is eaten by the wolf. The End. What better introduction to Little Red, with the special hood crafted for her lovingly by her mother, and of course, the sly and scary wolf? The patterns and colors in the homey setting and the wintry woods are exquisite watercolors. Another nice detail—the mother and daughter who were models for the illustrations are a biracial family that Pinkney knew.