Little Red Riding Sheep by Linda Lodding -ESSENTIAL

Lodding, Linda Little Red Riding Sheep, PICTURE BOOK. Antheneum (Simon), 2017.  $18.

The narrator/author is trying to tell the traditional story of little red riding hood when there is an interruption –Arnold the sheep is pretty insistent that he be Little Red. Then he has a lot of other ideas- who should play what character (he is terrified of real hungry wolves and has a suggestion for who the wolf could be played by instead), how the setting could be better (because he is scared of the deep dark woods too). Arnold even asks for changes from the illustrator.

I will immediately incorporate this book into my K-1 lessons on character (which I nicely place after those on author and illustrator and this acts as a review of those)! I think readers will love that the character is interacting with the author and being funny (one epic barf scene) and creative. For upper elementary it could be used for a lesson on twisted or fractured fairy tales. For example: imagine ‘harry potter’ (or alt character) was the character of ‘jack’ in jack and the beanstalk (or alt.story) -what would he do the same/different, how would it change the story?  This would get them thinking more deeply about characters and how they might react to situations outside of their own story. It could be used for a quick read aloud as part of a lesson for even high school readers on MetaFiction.

EL(K-3), EL –ESSENTIAL.  

Stephanie Elementary School Librarian & Author