Lon Po Po

Title: Lon Po Po (Caldecott Award Winner)

Author: Ed Young

Illustrator: Ed Young

Publisher & Publication Date: Philomel Books, 1989

Genre: Multicultural, Picture book, Traditional Literature

Grade Level: 2-4

Summary: This story is about a wolf that comes to the house that three young children are staying at while their mother went to visit their grandmother. He comes to the door and acts like he is their grandmother, and gets the children to let him in the house. One of the children figures out that he is wolf and gets the other two to help her get rid of him. They climb up a tree and get the wolf to climb up it too, but every time they start to pull him up they drop the basket he is sitting in. They end up killing to wolf and their mother comes home and they tell her all about their adventure with the wolf.

Response: I thought this was a great version of Little Red Riding Hood. It was different, but still good. The illustrations were a little scary, so this might not be the best book to red before bedtime to a small child. The illustrations were boxed-in and I think pastels were used to produce the images. Many of the image were dark, but some were a bit brighter. I felt many emotions while reading this story; scared, worried, concerned, and happy. Overall this was a wonderful little story. It relates to the Little Red Riding Hood I read when I was little, because it is a Red Riding Hood story.

Teaching Ideas: I would use the book to talk about different versions of well-known children's stories. You could talk about the other Red Riding Hood, then read it and talk about it some more. After that you could read this story and talk about it and how it is related to the other story. Then to finish up the activity have your students create their own Red Riding Hood story, as a whole class. Write the story they come up with on the board or on a big piece of paper. Then discuss how all three stories are different from each other.