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Red Ridinghood

A major treat of parenting has been my rediscovery of folk tales and fairy tales. Not that I ever really forgot them. But now they are back in my life in a big, big way.

The gateway drug was James Marshall.

Late in his career, Marshall turned to retellings, "Goldilocks" and "Red Ridinghood" among them. Though Marshall stays fairly close to the original (or "pseudo-original") text, his pictures tell their own stories: a shoeless Prince lazily reading novels when he should be dating, a crazed Fairy Godmother sticking halfway out of the frame, a pig in suspenders and a banker hat. Everyone now calls Marshall a genius, and that's fair enough. You can see the joy in the retellings.

I've traveled farther afield, with "Rumpelstiltskin" and "The Ugly Duckling." The authors are titans in their own way: Paul Zelinsky and Jerry Pinkney. I think neither has Marshall's sense of humor; neither has Marshall's flair for language. But Zelinsky paints like he is Bruegel. And Pinkney's ravishing, emotional images of nature make me think of Turner.

I'm looking forward to receiving "Snow White in New York," which turns Snow White into a flapper, in the 1920s. After that, I have an eye on "Rapunzel" (Zelinsky), "Jack and the Beanstalk" (Kellogg), "Chicken Little" (Kellogg)....

American tall tales can't be far behind....

Happy reading to you this weekend.

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