Red Ridin' in the Hood: and Other Cuentos
Grade 2-5–These retellings of classic European folktales with a modern Latino twist are only half-realized, and fall sadly flat. >From "Blanca Nieves and the Seven Vaqueritos" to "Juan and the Pinto Bean Stalk" to "Belleza y La Bestia," readers will find leaden prose, obvious and didactically stated morals, and narratives that have no tension, but move like a report of a plot that all readers know. The "cultural twist" affects the names, the food, and the setting. The characters say "señor" and "adios," but there is nothing "Latino" about the retellings–and none of the import or flavor of the originals. Two exceptions are "The Three Chicharrones," which poses the wolf as land-grabbing developer Dinero Martínez, and "The Sleeping Beauty," in which the princess is a snob and the witch is a misunderstood young lady who wins handsome Pepe's heart. Yet though these exhibit an inventiveness with the story, their language is similarly drab. Alarcão's comical and fanciful illustrations are wasted here. If one must have a Latino version of one of these folktales (and what exactly is the point? It's not as if the various Latino cultures have no rich oral traditions of their own), try Bobbi Salinas'sThe Three Pigs: Nacho, Tito, and Miguel(Piñata, 1998), which has a storyteller's sensibility.–Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.