
Little Bad Wolf
Abie Longstaff and Leire Martin
Happy Yak
This is not so much a fractured fairytale more a fairytale prequel.
We first meet the wolf – Baby Wolf – as a cute looking creature but with the habit of gobbling up anything that makes him cross. This distresses his mother and also on his first day at school, the teacher and fellow pupils. Needless to say Wolfie does not get the Star Pupil badge at the end of the week.
The following week though, our lupine resolves not to eat anything annoying, the result being he’s Star Pupil that Friday. His Dad is especially proud and makes Wolfie a swishy red cloak onto which is stitched a golden heart. Almost immediately Wolfie gets blueberry jam on the cloak’s hem.
One lunchtime the cloak disappears and who should arrive the next day but Little Red; guess what she was wearing. Wolfie is certain the garment is his but Little Red comes up with reasons why it’s hers

and this makes him want to revert to his old ways, but the teacher grabs him just in time. Little Red is absent the day after: she’s moved to Australia, so the teacher tells Wolfie who thinks he’ll never regain his cloak.
Years pass, Wolfie grows big and and stops (more or less) consuming annoying things. Then who should appear in the woods but a considerably larger Little Red, still wearing the cloak. “Everyone calls me Little Red Riding Hood now, because of my famous cloak,” she announces, going on to tell Wolfie that she’s off to visit Granny. Now, thinks Wolfie, this is my opportunity to find out if Granny really did made the cloak so he dashes off beating Red to Granny’s abode

and stows her safely away. Rather than spoil this hilarious story, that’s where I’ll leave things.
This is a great read aloud: when I shared it with a five year old relation, her ten year old brother stopped what he was doing to listen in, transfixed by the story even though he couldn’t see Leire Martin’s dramatic portrayals of the action with their fun details.





























































