BECKETT, Sandra L., Red Riding Hood for All Ages. A Fairy-Tale Icon in Cross-Cultural Contexts, Detroit, Wayne State University Press (Series in Fairy-Tale Studies), 2008.
ISBN 9780814333068
RÉSUMÉ
Red Riding Hood for All Agesinvestigates the modern recasting of one of the world's most belovedand frequently told tales. Author Sandra L. Beckett examines aninternational selection of contemporary fiction for children,adolescents, and adults to find a wide range of narrative andinterpretive perspectives in the tale and its revisions. Beckett showshow authors and illustrators from around the globe have renewed theage-old tale in a range of multilayered, sophisticated, and complextextual and visual Red Riding Hood narratives.
With a child protagonist who confronts grown-up issues of sexuality,violence, and death, the Red Riding Hood story appeals to readers ofall age groups and is often presented in crossover texts that can beenjoyed by both children and adults. Beckett presents a wide selectionof retellings, many of which have been never translated into English.Texts come from a variety of countries in Europe, North America, SouthAmerica, Africa, and Asia and date from the early twentieth to thetwenty-first century. This wealth of stories and illustrations isorganized thematically into sections that consider Little Red RidingHood alternately as a cautionary tale, an initiation story, a storyfocused on the wolf, a tale inspired by the wolf within, and a story ofan unconventional girl who runs with wolves.
This volume provides a global survey of Red Riding Hood's story incontemporary culture, proving that the character is omnipresent inmodern literature and that the universal appeal of her story knows noage boundaries. Red Riding Hood for All Ageswill be of interest to scholars of folklore, gender studies, andliterature, as well as librarians, educators, parents, and all thoseinterested in the many interpretations of the Red Riding Hood tale.
BIOGRAPHIE
Sandra L. Beckett is professor of French at Brock University, Ontario, Canada.