Lon PoPo

Young, Ed
Penguin Putnam Books, 1996
Multicultural
All ages
Folklore

The story Lon PoPo is the chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood. It is about three sisters, Shang, Tao, and Paotze. Their mother leaves them to go visit their grandmother for her birthday. The wolf sees her leave the children and goes to them. He knocked on the door and pretended that it was their grandmother. The children let him him, thinking that it is their grandmother. They are holding a candle which the children keep blowing out. He told them he was hairy because he brought hemp to weave a basket. Then he said he had spikes on his hands to make shoes. They then catch on and the oldest child decides to trick him. She asks him if he likes Ginko berries and he asked what they were. She told him that with one bite you could live forever. They get a basket and some rope and try to lift him up to the top of the tree and they drop him three times. On the third time he falls to the ground and dies, and the children are safe.

I liked this book, but I am so used to the other version of Little Red Riding Hood. I really enjoyed the pictures and thought that they were so beautiful. I remember when i was little this story used to really scare me but i think that it is good to introduce different versions of traditional literature to children. This is the first time that I have experienced another version.

I think in the classroom you could use this to learn about other cultures. Little Red Riding Hood is such a traditional tale for young american children and i think that they w ould be excited to learn about other versions of the story. You could also use the venn diagram which we have been working on to compare and to contrast.