Overview / 简介: |
| A series of fairly obvious clues help Jake Gander prove Red R. Hood's suspicions about her granny's strange new look. |
From Organization / 国外机构评价: |
| At the start of this deadpan parody of nursery stories and gumshoes, Jake Gander (who's a guy, not a goose) puts down his Once Upon a Times newspaper to field a call from Red R. Hood. "It was a code P.W.T. (Possible Wolf Trouble)," he intones. At the home of Red's Granny, Jake finds a brown beast sprawled under a purple duvet, but does not jump to conclusions: "I decided to take our little party downtown to clear things up." The resolute but dim investigator who appears in black-and-white while all around him is in color inspects this "Granny's" pointy ears and bulging, hard-boiled-egg eyes; later he learns the real Granny is on vacation. Meanwhile, the pot-bellied wolf never resists arrest. With its lockjaw grin and unfocused stare, the silent perp appears more neurotic than predatory, and Red seems quite unruffled by the situation. First-time author artist McClements mimes the punchy first-person style of detective fiction and presents the evidence as snapshots paperclipped to a yellow manila folder. Visual jokes a diagram of Humpty Dumpty's fall, a filing cabinet labeled "Frogs (non-princely)" provide mild levity in the collage illustrations. But unlike the sustained Mother Goose send-up in last year's The Web Files, this book is an open-and-shut case. Ages 3-7.
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Foreign Customer Review / 国外客户评价: |
| So many "children's" stories are downright grim. After a reading you feel like you've just walked out of an Ingmar Bergman film. Luckily, Jake Gander, Storyville Detective (and writer/illustrator George McClements) is on the case.
McClements has come up with the high concept idea of a detective who works to clear up some of the tougher cases in children's literature. The guy seems a little clueless (giving kids a chance, of course, to contribute their own investigative insights), but he gets the job done. In this story, not only does he prevent the wolf from eating granny and Little Red, but the wolf even goes to a kind of anger management program afterwards, instead of receiving the penalty of death by Woodsman's axe.
The idea of changing the endings to classic fairy tales might raise the hackles on some traditionalists. But the original tales aren't really going away (that's just part of the story--it's fiction, see). And who really believes those classic fairy tales were meant for kids in the first place? I think this version is much more appropriate for the proposed age range of 3 to 7. (I say wait until children can read the LA Times before filling them full of death, destruction, and bummer endings--and The Seventh Seal is out on DVD now.)
Of course, the story works well with the 30 to 40 year old age range, too. I like the idea of seeing some of the stories that left me with emotional scars from childhood readings getting a little help from a good-guy detective. And this book is as fun for adults as it is for kids (always an indication of the best children's stories).
The illustrations are as fun as the stories. Full of fairy tale (the main industry in Storyville) inside jokes and vivid details.
Buy lots of these books. You'll need at least two just for your own house, one for you and one for your child (you know how kids tend to chew and drool on good literature).
Of course, under the hot lights, I have to confess my real motivation here is for the book to become a big enough seller to spawn the inevitable sequels. I'm dying to see Jake Gander take on, say, the case of the lost Hansel & Gretel. I always felt sorry for the witch.
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