I did not like this book. I thought the title was clever, but the stories were not so clever. Red Ridin' is the second of eleven stories. This "twist "on the traditional is not as funny or original as Jon Sciescka's work-The True story of the Three Pigs .

"Roja" is sent to visit her abuelita and is warned to avoid Forest St. Of course she doesn't and is approached by the wolf, which in this case is a boy in a low rider named Lobo Chavez. This story (as well as the cuentos) is boring, condescending and plays to stereotypes of Latino culture.

Grades 4-8

Personal Response:
The imaginative retelling of these adventures, Red traveling through the "bad neighborhood on Forest Street," are clever reinterpretations of classic fairy tales. While there is a lot of buildup and clever adaptation to incorporate latino culture, I felt the endings were a bit abrupt and flat. The stories have humorous elements, however, that I'm sure children will enjoy.

Curricular Connections:
This story would be great on a presentation in the classroom or library setting on fractured fairy tales/fairy tales retold. I would not include these in a presentation of "fairy tales around the world" as they are reinterpretations of generic European tales. My favorite aspect of this book is the full page illustrations. ( )

Alive with similes and imaginative imagery (“stomachs growling like mountain lions” and “lips as cracked as a thirsty riverbed,” these “cuentos” delight us in their retelling against a Latino backdrop. Familiar fairy tales are given new spark by changes in simple details such as…
Jaime and Gabriela (Hansel and Gretel) leave tortilla crumbs on the trail instead of bread crumbs.
The bruja (witch) fattens Jaime with burritos and chickens with mole sauce.
Little Red Riding Hood’s mother packs a basket of chicken soup with cilantro, peppermint tea, peppers, and goat cheese that smells like Uncle Jose’s feet, and the wolf is a suavecito low rider whose name is Lobo Chavez. He drives a Chevy with flames licking the hood. The Emperor’s New Clothes is retold by transforming the Emperor into a popular high school boy who is president of his class, captain of the basketball team, and a great break dancer. He wears gelled spiked hair and thinks he’s all that. When the main character, Veronica, cannot convince the students to act like themselves rather than imitate everything that the popular boy does, she plays to his ego by pretending to be a fashion designer who wants to style a line just for him. We enjoy reading the predictable spinning of the tale where the young narcissist ends up on stage in only his boxers.
Great classroom tool for comparative study between fairy tales, study of literary devices such as metaphors, and would serve as a great example for students when rewriting fairy tales themselves. ( )

From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5–These retellings of classic European folktales with a modern Latino twist are only half-realized, and fall sadly flat. >From "Blanca Nieves and the Seven Vaqueritos" to "Juan and the Pinto Bean Stalk" to "Belleza y La Bestia," readers will find leaden prose, obvious and didactically stated morals, and narratives that have no tension, but move like a report of a plot that all readers know. The "cultural twist" affects the names, the food, and the setting. The characters say "señor" and "adios," but there is nothing "Latino" about the retellings–and none of the import or flavor of the originals. Two exceptions are "The Three Chicharrones," which poses the wolf as land-grabbing developer Dinero Martínez, and "The Sleeping Beauty," in which the princess is a snob and the witch is a misunderstood young lady who wins handsome Pepe's heart. Yet though these exhibit an inventiveness with the story, their language is similarly drab. Alarcão's comical and fanciful illustrations are wasted here. If one must have a Latino version of one of these folktales (and what exactly is the point? It's not as if the various Latino cultures have no rich oral traditions of their own), try Bobbi Salinas's The Three Pigs: Nacho, Tito, and Miguel (Piñata, 1998), which has a storyteller's sensibility.–Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CA
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 3-5. The fractured fairy tale gets cool Latino flavor in this lively collection of 11 fresh retellings, with witty reversals of class and gender roles and powerful, full-page pictures that set the drama in venues ranging from the desert and the barrio to a skyscraper. The old scary demons, such as the witch in the forest, are in evidence, but there's also a Sleeping Beauty story told about a hurt, angry orphan witch who gets revenge for not being invited to a spoiled, rich girl's quinceacera. In "Emperador's New Clothes," Emperador runs the high-school scene. His perfectly gelled, spiky hair makes him look as if he just popped out of a teen magazine. Then Veronica tricks him into appearing at the assembly in his underpants. Unfortunately, some messages are much too heavily spelled out: Beauty teaches Beast not only about the revolution but also about the meaning of fear and true ugliness; Jack finds his dream not in the sky but in hard work. But the lively, fast-paced retellings, the Spanish idiom (there's a glossary at the back), and the dynamic, full-page pictures, several per story, make this great for storytelling collections. Hazel Rochman
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