LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

"Do I find you here, you old sinner! . . . Long enough have I sought you!" exclaims the huntsman before cutting Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother out of the greedy wolf's belly. This, then, is a thoroughly conventional Red Riding Hood, both for better (the unbowdlerized Grimm ending) and for worse (the half-modern, half-archaic adaptation). And as usual, Galdone's pictures pose no surprises—the blond, angel-faced Red Riding Hood and the wolf with his lolling pink tongue, pink nightgown and ruffled cap are bloodless, storybook cutouts, but this illustrator's ability to establish eye contact with the reader is really effective here. None of the impish subtlety of deRegniers and Gorey (KR, 1972), but then, "all the better to catch hold of you with, my dear."