Goldilocks and the Three Bears
This large-format edition of the traditional story offers plenty of scope for Clark’s colorful illustrations. While the plot remains the same, the telling is a little more elaborate here than in most versions, with a couple of new refrains and added dialogue, such as Daddy Bear’s reacting to Baby Bear’s discovery of his broken chair by growling about the perpetrator: That someone is a hooligan and a thief . . . and if I find them, there’s going to be trouble. The idyllic setting is the Bear family’s mountaintop cottage, surrounded by flowering woodlands and filled with checked, plaid, and flower-and-leaf-print furniture, wallpapers, curtains, rugs, bedspreads, and china. The controlled profusion of patterns gives the pencil-and-acrylic illustrations a busy but cheerful look. After the bears discover Goldilocks in bed, the tension of this potentially scary scene is eased by visual humor when the frightened girl’s foot-long hair stands straight up. Recommended for the freshness and energy of its artwork. Preschool-Grade 1. --Carolyn Phelan