Sunday, March 25, 2007

Sharp, white teeth with a (not so) horrid grin!




"As soon as Wolf began to feel

That he would like a decent meal,

He went and knocked on Grandma's door.

When Grandma opened it, she saw

The sharp white teeth, the horrid grin,

And Wolfie said, "May I come in?"

Poor Grandmamma was terrified,

"He's going to eat me up!" she cried.

And she was absolutely right.

He ate her up in one big bite."


His big teeth in these pictures made me think of the old Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH) fairy tale. I found a number of warped versions of the story floating around the internet. The above quote is from Roald Dahl. The rest of his version of the story is here: http://www.cupola.com/html/wordplay/redride1.htm
Dahl's version of the story left me thinking that LRRH was probably a Republican voting member of the local NRA chapter who didn't think twice about shooting an often unecessarily maligned and defenseless member of an endangered species.
Then I found another, politically correct, version of the LRRH story elsewhere on the same website here: http://www.cupola.com/html/wordplay/redride2.htm. I've lived this version myself over the last 9 years as a owner/worker/member of a cooperatively run business in Berkeley, CA.
The question is this: Should I really be telling our son stories that involve animals eating his relatives? And if so, which version should he get?
Rob

1 Comments:

Blogger Julia Bryn Runyan said...

Marc and I had similar thoughts last night when he was reading Julia a book that was his as a kid - Paul Bunyan. He got to the page where Paul shot 23 ducks in one shot, and the 2 page spread illustration of 23 dead, upside down ducks was a bit unnerving!
But Julia seemed to mind less than we did....

10:57 AM  

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