This is the whole tale, the same ten pages that open Pillowbook on the phone. Read it here tonight if that is easier. Nothing is cut, nothing asks you to sign up, and the pictures were painted for this book.
Reading time is about five minutes at an unhurried pace. The text is retold for a child between three and eight, so the wolf is a wolf and the ending is safe.
Her grandmother made the cloak one winter, out of good red wool, with a hood deep enough to pull right forward over her eyes. The girl wore it every single day after that — to the well, to the shop, very nearly to bed — and before long the whole village had stopped using her name and called her after the hood instead. She did not mind. It was a very good hood.On Saturday her mother packed a basket. A round cake, still warm enough to feel through the weave, a pot of butter with a paper lid, and a linen cloth folded over the top of both. "Keep to the path," her mother said, tucking the cloth down at the corners. "All the way there." The girl said that she would keep to the path.The sun came down through the leaves and lay on the path in coins that moved when the wind moved. She counted the mushrooms along the edge, which came to eleven. She stopped a while to watch a beetle exactly the green of bottle glass, and waited to see which way it would decide to go. It went under a leaf. Then she went on, swinging the basket a little.The wolf was sitting on a fallen trunk with his paws tucked behind his back and a green neckerchief knotted at his throat. He said good morning. He asked, very politely, where she was going. She told him, because there was no reason not to — to her grandmother's, with a cake and some butter. "How kind," said the wolf, and he meant it in his own way."And which house is that?" he asked, as though he were only making conversation. "The last one, past the birches, with the blue shutters." The wolf nodded slowly. Then he looked off to one side and remarked that the flowers along the edge of the wood were far better than the ones on the path — bigger, and more of them, and nobody ever picked them. The girl thought about that and agreed.So she stepped off the path to gather a bunch for her grandmother, and it took longer than she meant, because every time she had enough there was a better one a little further in. And while she was choosing, the wolf went the other way — the short way, over the stile and along the ditch — and got to the cottage first.He knocked. He was extremely charming about it. When the door opened he came in, apologised twice, said it would only be for a very short while, and shut the pantry door gently behind her grandmother. Then he looked around the room, found the spare cardigan hanging on the back of the chair, put it on, and got into the bed.The girl arrived a little later with flowers in one hand and the basket in the other, and called out from the doorstep, and a voice said come in. Somebody was lying in the bed with the quilt pulled right up to the nose. The room was dim, because the curtains were still shut, and it smelled the way it always did — of soap and dried apples."Grandmother," she said, coming closer, "what big ears you have today." "All the better to hear you with," said a voice that was not quite the right voice. "Grandmother — what grey paws you have." There was a pause, and it went on slightly too long. Then the wolf sat straight up in the bed, because he had run out of answers and knew it. And three firm knocks came from behind the pantry door.The woodsman heard the knocking from the track outside and put his head round the door. He opened the pantry. Her grandmother came out, straightened her spectacles, and looked at the wolf sitting in her bed in her own cardigan — a long, long look, without one word. He folded the cardigan onto the chair and went out through the window. Then they ate the cake with the lamp lit, all three of them, and nobody was in any hurry to go anywhere.
The end.
Little Red Riding Hood is free tonight
12 classic fairy tales, ten painted pages each, one story an evening. No sign-up before you can read.
Yes. All ten pages of Little Red Riding Hood are on this page, with the illustration that belongs to each one. Nothing is held back for the app.
Is it suitable for a three year old?
Yes. This retelling keeps the wolf and the woods but not the fright. It is written for children between three and eight and ends safely.
How long does it take to read aloud?
About five minutes at an unhurried pace, which is roughly one page every thirty seconds.
Where do the pictures come from?
They were painted for Pillowbook, one plate per page, in a single visual voice shared across all twelve tales in the book. They are not stock illustrations.
Can I read the other tales here?
No. Little Red Riding Hood is the tale Pillowbook gives away, on the web and in the app alike. The other eleven come with the app, 10 painted pages each.
