Yummy Eight Favorite Fairytales

Genre II: Traditional Literature

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cousins, Lucy. Yummy Eight Favorite Fairytales. Somerville: Candlewick Press.2009. ISBN 9780763644741

2. PLOT SUMMARY
In her anthology of fairy tales, Cousins included all the well known characters from eight favorite fairytales. She selected Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Enormous Turnip, Henny Penny, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Pigs, and The Musicians of Bremen. She adds her own style to each story without altering the characters or their circumstances. The tales are presented in a more concise format but the integrity of each is intact. Cousins adds her signature outbursts and onomatopoeia to the retellings.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Yummy Eight Favorite Fairytales is a great collection of some beloved tales but not necessarily the very best known stories. True to the culture of these narratives, Cousins uses authentic language and rhythmic text as well as some of the less gentle versions of the accounts (e.g., the wolf looses his head to the hunter’s ax). The expected lessons and outcomes of good conquers evil, be prepared not lazy, and beware of tricksters are still evident and always lead to the vital “happy ending” we anticipate with fairytales. However, choosing some yarns that many may not be intimately familiar gives this album a fresh feel. Certainly The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Enormous Turnip and The Musicians of Bremen are not as frequently found in other collections as Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs are. Including these treasures here is a treat for beginning and accomplished readers alike. Cousins of course illustrates her collection with her usual technique know as gouache. This technique produces a more strongly colored picture than ordinary watercolor and is Cousins’s signature design. The solid primary colored backgrounds and the thick painted declarations and outlines accomplish a beautiful and enticing creation.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: Beloved classics are successfully served by these bold, striking renditions. There's no sugarcoating here, as the wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood" is shown receiving his gruesome comeuppance and Henny Penny's friends never return from Foxy Woxy's lair. Large, arresting gouache spreads in Cousins's signature style utilize saturated colors and thick, dark outlines against solid backgrounds. Expressive characters enhance the stories' shifting moods.

KIRKUS: Along with crowd-friendly illustrations done in her customary bright colors and broadly brushed lines, the author adds big hand-lettered taglines ("Bye-bye, Wolf") as cues for shouted-out commentary. Though the Three Bears look like teddy bears and as a concession to more pacifist audiences the author includes a severely compressed rendition of "The Enormous Turnip," on the whole this lap-sized collection offers younger children an eye-opening cross-section of the far-from-innocuous world of folk literature.

3. CONNECTIONS
*Lucy Cousins is inspired more by elementary schools than museums. (http://www.maisyfunclub.com/maisyframe.asp?section=lucy). Ask children what they think she might find inspiring at their school and why.
*After reading other books by Lucy Cousins, allow students to try the gouache technique. What is so appealing about this technique?