The Girl in Red

Overview

A good story can change. In The Girl in Red, acclaimed illustrator Roberto Innocenti offers a modern take on the centuries-old tale of an ailing grandmother, a wicked wolf, and a young girl in a red coat. Innocenti's brilliantly detailed illustrations present a city as a wilderness, while text by Aaron Frisch narrates the journey of a girl named Sophia through the twists and turns of a stormy day.

Read More Show Less
... See more details below
Other sellers (Hardcover)
  • All (24) from $10.65   
  • New (17) from $10.68   
  • Used (7) from $10.65   
Note: Kids' Club Eligible. See More Details.
Sending request ...

Overview

A good story can change. In The Girl in Red, acclaimed illustrator Roberto Innocenti offers a modern take on the centuries-old tale of an ailing grandmother, a wicked wolf, and a young girl in a red coat. Innocenti's brilliantly detailed illustrations present a city as a wilderness, while text by Aaron Frisch narrates the journey of a girl named Sophia through the twists and turns of a stormy day.

Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Hans Christian Andersen Medalist Innocenti (The House) reworks Little Red Riding Hood in a story narrated, improbably, by a doll-size figure of a grandmother surrounded by a group of children. “Toys can be fun,” the automaton tells them as she knits. “But a good story is magic.” In a series of spreads that cross the busyness of Where’s Waldo? with the bleak commercial dystopia of Blade Runner, Sophia, clad in a red cloak, crosses trash- and graffiti-strewn streets on her way to her Nana’s, dwarfed by buildings and jostled by crowds. Her predator isn’t a wolf but a man with a brush cut and a black coat. Frisch (The Lonely Pine) describes him with a sneer: “A smiling hunter. What big teeth he has. Dark and strong and perfect in his timing.” The traditional tale has several endings, and Frisch offers alternatives as well—first a tragedy (“It is almost morning when a mother’s phone rings”), then a triumph, as police officers capture the man in the black coat. Not a bedtime story, but an opening to hard questions about violence and safety—and about storytelling, too. Ages 8–up. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
Little Red travels a 'hood of a different color in this gritty, urbanized adaptation of the classic folktale. The story begins in a crumbling housing project (the text, which hews more closely to the original tale's language, calls it a forest), where Sophia's mother asks her to go check in on her Nana. Sophia loads her backpack, dons her red coat, and walks through the city toward "The Wood," a bloated, jangling shopping complex, heading for Nana's trailer. Along the way she meets with "jackal" hooligans and a motorcycle-riding "wolf"; we last see Sophia at the door of Nana's trailer, in which we know the wolf waits. There appear to be two endings to this story: one in which the girl's fate ends in tragedy, the other in which the police arrive and "the wolf is snared, a family spared." Either way, Innocenti sets a menacing scene through his terse narrative and dark illustrations. The crowded, large-trim spreads, with their detailed detritus of urban blight, establish a discomfiting tension between the garish, saturated colors of the commercial noise and the drab decay of the asphalt jungle, asking readers to consider the price of commerce and the impact of corporate greed on our cultural integrity and to look past these outward signs of decay to see the humanity in a seemingly depraved landscape. - The Horn Book

Hans Christian Andersen Medalist Innocenti (The House) reworks Little Red Riding Hood in a story narrated, improbably, by a doll-size figure of a grandmother surrounded by a group of children. "Toys can be fun," the automaton tells them as she knits. "But a good story is magic." In a series of spreads that cross the busyness of Where's Waldo? with the bleak commercial dystopia of Blade Runner, Sophia, clad in a red cloak, crosses trash- and graffiti-strewn streets on her way to her Nana's, dwarfed by buildings and jostled by crowds. Her predator isn't a wolf but a man with a brush cut and a black coat. Frisch (The Lonely Pine) describes him with a sneer: "A smiling hunter. What big teeth he has. Dark and strong and perfect in his timing." The traditional tale has several endings, and Frisch offers alternatives as well-first a tragedy ("It is almost morning when a mother's phone rings"), then a triumph, as police officers capture the man in the black coat. Not a bedtime story, but an opening to hard questions about violence and safety-and about storytelling, too. Ages 8-up. (Nov.) - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up—Employing the hyperrealistic style used in his controversial Holocaust picture book, Rose Blanche (Creative Editions, 1985), Innocenti here conjures a menacing forest for Little Red Riding Hood. The path in this modern-day, urban setting is surrounded with litter, graffiti, homeless people, traffic jams, fast food, and a crime scene. Sophia's journey is narrated by a knitting granny who appears before the title page amid a group of children. Frisch's ominous text, placed within garish red or gray blocks, sets the tone: "Stories are like the skies. They can change, bring surprises, catch you without a coat. Look up all you want, but you never really know what's coming." The heart of the forest is a shopping mall. Catatonic shoppers are visually assaulted with signs of garters and guns, bingo and bling; stained-glass windows feature Micky Mouse and seductively posed women. The protagonist halts before a toy-filled "window of wonders" and then, lost, falters in a dark alley filled with punks. In a disturbing sequence, she is "rescued" by "a smiling hunter" (a biker, dressed in black, who is later revealed to be the wolf). The story projects a sense of foreboding and terror, and the first of two endings moves the children in the framing story to tears; a "happy" version is unconvincingly appended. By removing the filter of folklore and pulling the archetypal dangers into the present without a sense of safety anywhere, author and illustrator have created a profoundly unsettling narrative that may have some appeal to urban teens.—Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library
Kirkus Reviews
A modern, urban, dream-and-nightmare scenario for Red Riding Hood, with a television-show ending. The story is told by a tiny woman knitting in a pool of light, surrounded by children, possibly in a classroom or play group. Sophia lives with her mother and sister in a high-rise apartment, and her mother sends her off with honey and biscuits in her backpack for her grandmother on the other edge of the forest--the "forest" being a gritty urban environment with echoes of the seedier ends of London or New York. Innocenti creates a darkly fabulous urban landscape full of traffic, litter, graffiti and raucous advertisements in many languages. When Sophia reaches The Wood, a Times Square–like habitat where "[a]lmost anything you want can be had," she finds her favorite shop, full of action figures and heroines, but loses her way. A motorcycle gang surrounds her, but she is rescued by a dark figure who takes her most of the way to her grandmother's and then….The final scene finds Nana's trailer surrounded by police cars and reporters, and the scarf the teller has been knitting is much, much longer. Older children, and perhaps even teens, might find this tale much to their liking; some, however, might find its darkness a little too unmitigated, despite the closing sign that says "Happy End." (Picture book. 8-12)
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781568462233
  • Publisher: Creative Company, The
  • Publication date: 8/29/2012
  • Pages: 32
  • Sales rank: 470,086
  • Age range: 8 - 18 Years
  • Product dimensions: 11.50 (w) x 10.80 (h) x 0.40 (d)

Meet the Author

Aaron Frisch is an editor and author whose picture books—published by Creative Editions—have received an IPPY Award Gold Medal, a Spur Award, and a finalist nomination for the Minnesota Book Awards.

Roberto Innocenti, a self-taught artist, has earned worldwide acclaim with such illustrated books as Rose Blanche and The Adventures of Pinocchio. In 2008, he received the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award.

Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
( 0 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

    If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
    Why is this product inappropriate?
    Comments (optional)