Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Chichester Clark does a most difficult thing in Goldilocks and the Three Bears – she brings freshness to a very well-worn story. This is an entirely traditional retelling – no quirky postmodernism here – yet she causes her reader to look with renewed enjoyment at the tale. Her lively text portrays Goldilocks with all the self-absorption of a very young child: ‘She didn’t wonder. She didn’t ask’ when she enters the bears’ house, and she grumbles when things are not to her liking and makes use of those that are. But it is Chichester Clark’s visual capturing of both Goldilocks and the bears that makes this book such a treat. Her familiar bright colours and liking for detail work splendidly here. The images are disposed on large pages in a way that moves the story along and shows the reader plenty that is not told in words. Daddy Bear in particular, in his summery print shirt, comes across as a likeable father-figure. And there is a nice bit of intertextuality when we see Goldilocks looking for a place where she can settle down to read ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. This witty, visually absorbing large format version of an old story is highly recommended for reading aloud, either to a group or at bedtime and for general enjoyment by child or adult.