Little Red Cowboy Hat - Susan Lowell

Illustrator: Randy Cecil
For: Kids
Pub: 1997
Rating: 4/5
Finished: Aug. 11, 2008

I love fractured fairy tales, and while wandering around the the Texas State History Museum gift shop I found this book. It was actually the author's name that drew me, because I'm not crazy about the cover illustration. However, the opening two-page spread of bright yellow, orange chartreuse, lime, and gold desert appealed to me greatly.

Local author Susan Lowell has created a fractured fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood that is set in the Sonoran desert and has the feistiest grandmother I've ever met on the pages of a picture book. "That yellow-bellied, snake-blooded, skunk-eyed, rancid son of a parallelogram!" she exclaims after they have successfully driven him out. (We actually never know whether Little Red and Granny kill him or not, but that would make a great conversation!) Great language throughout.

As far as illustrations, I liked the outdoor, desert pages far more than the pages set indoors. And the cover still doesn't work for me, but now I'm going to explore other works of Randy Cecil to see how I feel about his work as a whole.