Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne

by Steven Guarnaccia

Overview

When she discovers the three bears’ house in the woods, Goldilocks ventures in and makes herself at home. According to tradition, she sits in the chairs, samples the meal laid on the table, and takes a nap. Yet something is different in this retelling of the classic story of the girl with golden locks.

Though our heroine is the same, our bears certainly are not. These bears are hip; they have a sense of style and a love of design. Their split-level home is filled with furnishings created by an international crowd of celebrated designers, from Alvar Aalto to Charles and Ray Eames to Isamu Noguchi.

Children will delight in this long-beloved story given new life by Steven Guarnaccia’s stylized artwork—and may even pick up a design tip or two.

F&P Level: N
F&P Genre: TL

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810989665
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	11/01/2010
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 13.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	5 - 7 Years

About the Author

Steven Guarnaccia is the chair of the illustration department at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City. His art has appeared in many national and international magazines. He is the author of several books for adults and children, including The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale. He lives and works in Montclair, New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

This companion to Guarnaccia's The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale recasts the three bears as hipsters living in a cottage filled with 20th-century design icons. Papa Bear's chair is a Charles Rennie Mackintosh ladderback ("hard as a rock"), Mama Bear's is an Arne Jacobsen "Egg" chair ("way too soft"), and Baby Bear's is an Eames brothers creation ("but just as she was getting cozy, the chair broke into pieces"). (These and other furnishings appear and are defined on the endpapers.) Goldilocks finds chili on the table instead of porridge, airbeds and Italian sofas instead of woodland cottage primitive, while Papa Bear sports a beret, sunglasses, and a clarinet in the hippest '50s beat style (Baby Bear, meanwhile, is never without his coonskin cap). Guarnaccia's clear-line drawings convey a gently humorous vision of mid-century life among kidney-shaped furniture and Hungarian ceramics; there's a cowboy holster slung around Baby Bear's bed and an "Ursus" university pennant hanging on his wall. Children will be entertained (and, possibly, educated), design students will be amused, and adults will draw sighs of nostalgia. Ages 4–8. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Once upon a time, a family of bears lived in a split-level house deep in the forest. There was a big burly Papa Bear, a medium-sized Mama Bear, and their pint-sized Baby Bear." This hipster family—Papa sports a beret, dark glasses and a scruffy, beatnik beard—has furnished their split-level with the finest in modern design, which Goldilocks predictably abuses when she happens upon their house as the Bears go for a walk to let their chili cool off. Guarnaccia uses the same groovy style he employed for The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale (2010), isolating the Bears' furniture (a Jacobsen "Egg" chair, a Noguchi chess table, a Nelson "Atom" clock, a Becchi "Anfibio" sofa, etc., all identified on the endpapers) in white space and employing off-kilter angles and a judicious use of neon lines on black. While some of the dialogue is a little odd (a dismayed Mama Bear expostulates, "Buzz fuzz!"), for the most part the retelling is both smooth and in keeping with the look of the book. The Bears have never been so cool. (Picture book/fairy tale. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews