While we certainly need to understand that Little Red Riding Hood was written in a much earlier time and therefore may not match today's quality standards for a story, I do not think that this version is one I would share with my students. In the story, the girl meets a wolf in the woods and he tricks her into challenge that he knows he will win. The story does not have the happy ending of many modern tales, and the wolf ends up eating both the grandmother and the girl.

While I do not have an issue with this ending, I do have an issue with the moral of the story. The moral is explicitly stated and starts out by saying, "Children, especially pretty, nicely brought-up young ladies, ought never to talk to strangers." While this sounds innocent, I think it reinforces the idea that young ladies should be taught to be as vulnerable as possible and fear all large men, especially if they are not as nicely brought up as they are. At its worst, the story comes off as discriminatory based on class and reinforces the ideas that the classes should never mix.

The story is extremely short (three pages) and has themes on naiveté and fear of strangers.

An interestingly liberal translation by Angela Carter, with sure signs of her feminist slant particularly in the morals. Love a good fairy tale!

she di*s. everyone did