Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale

Rating:
Summary: A MUST Read !!
Review: Catherine Orenstein has a real hit here. A fast, engaging, "can't put it down" read, "Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked" is smart and funny and sexy and engaging all the way along. Her research is deep, the analysis powerful, and she turns a nice phrase too! ("Like a prism that refracts light and delivers the spectrum of the rainbow, 'Little Red Riding Hood' splits and reveals the various elements of human identity"). She uses the story as a window into so many aspects of culture, society and the human psyche. I Loved it!

Rating:
Summary: nice, but far from original
Review: catherine orenstein says this book derived from her university studies, and unfortunately, this shows. now, this is a nice book for someone with a passing interest, or as an introduction. but if you have read either jack zipes' 'the trials and tribulations of little red riding hood' or alan dundes' 'little red riding hood; a casebook' there will be very little to interest you here. i bought this book because i myself am doing some research in the area, and despite the impression this book gives as being the result of a marketing drive (both the author and the title are no doubt sexier than zipes or dundes), i needed to make myself aware of it. the recommendation by jack zipes makes perfect sense when one realises that he was in fact the teacher of said university studies (hence the resemblance).
i don't mean to sound mean, since ms orenstein i'm sure is a very nice person, but this is not a work of scholarship; there is nothing new, no new argument, no new information. but it will pass the time on a train journey.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, Funny and Important
Review: Every woman who cares about how society sees her, or her mother, or her daughter, should read this book to find out how myths and fictions about women get created. This book does a wonderful job of investigating the history and symbolism behind one of the most popular stories of all time We should pay attention to the stories we tell, lest we get trapped by them. I loved this book, everyone with a daughter should read it.

Rating:
Summary: red riding hood rocks
Review: I couldn't put this book down while reading it, but yet I can't remember much a couple of hours after finishing it.
The author selects nice topics and interesting reinterpretations of the famous Red Riding Hood Tale, with nice illustrations: My favorite one are the advertisements and the picture of the wolf, tranvestive, "pregnant" with Riding Hood.
The book is sometimes repetitive and it was hard for me to distinguish the different points the author was trying to make with each chapter.
It is too bad the author said she could not write everything she managed to get through extensive research. One wonders whether she left out things that might have been more interesting.
In any case, it is a great for those who like folktale analysis.

Rating:
Summary: Cautionary review
Review: I was unaware, until reading Ms. Orenstein's book, that there were so many modern riffs on the tale of Little Red Riding hood--ironic riffs, satiric riffs, feminist riffs. These riffs turn the tale upside down and inside out, presenting its characters and events vice versa, topsy-turvy, inversely, and perversely--each presumably making some Point, which Ms. Orenstein spells out for us at great length, shedding light on the subtle differences between them all. As I say, I was unaware of all these riffs on the tale. Now that I know about them, I have to say that, on the whole, I don't much care. It's not a long book, but it would be much shorter if Ms. Orenstein hadn't followed the principle that anything worth saying once is worth saying twice (or even thrice). The illustrations are great, however, and they earned that third star in my rating.

Rating:
Summary: witty, thorough, and surprising
Review: The book is just awesome and grabs on to your attention the entire time - its entertaining and provides a whole new prespective of a simple "childhood" story

Rating:
Summary: Terrific insight into an intersting tale
Review: This book puts a unique spin on a common children's fairy tale that many of us grew up with. As she states in the book this story starts out rather baudy and morphs as our morality changes through time. Little Red Riding Hood becomes younger and younger through the years with first starting out as a young woman undressing and crawling into bed with the wolf, until now where the woman singlehandedly defeats the wolf herself.
I like this book because she brings in historical context of this tale. It is amazing how many tales may have originated from the French Court during its heyday. Cinderella, which also started out much differently, Rapunzell, are all noted in this book. I hope the author continues writing about other tales as she did this one. Her style makes it hard to put this one down.

Rating:
Summary: fun, sexy, thoughtful
Review: This was a fun little ride through one of the more iconic fairy tales - tracing its original publication as a morality fable about high-society sexual escapades and traipsing on down through the twentieth century. Along the way, the book addresses old Bugs Bunny cartoons, Sam the Sham and the Pharohs ("Little Red Riding Hood ... you sure are looking good ... you're everything a big bad wolf could want ...") and Kim Cattrall in the Pepsi commercial where the wolf/woman roles are exaggerated and fused. Lots of good analysis going on here; much of it is fairly obvious, but every now and again the author surprises you with a little moment of, "Huh. I never thought about it that way."

Definitely a fun pop culture read. I might even go so far as to say it's one of the better ones I've gotten my hands on in awhile.