THE GUNNIWOLF

Harper’s multicultural rendition of this nonviolent Red Riding Hood variant edges back into print with a lengthy preface and new illustrations that freshen its idyllic, woodsy setting. References to “jungle” in the text notwithstanding, the barefoot, apple-cheeked Little Girl ventures into airy, open woods near her log cabin to pick daisies and daylilies, encounters the Gunniwolf—depicted as a neatly kept red wolf who projects doggy friendliness despite his size—and repeatedly has to sing him to sleep with her “guten, sweeten song” to make an escape. Storytellers may still prefer Antoinette Delaney’s Gunnywolf (1988), in which the alphabet song replaces Little Girl’s “Kim-kwa, khi-wa,” but Upton’s bright colors and cleanly drawn figures are likely to have more visual appeal to children than William Wiesner’s more subdued art in the better-known 1967 edition. (Picture book/folktale. 5-7)