Little Red Riding Hood, illustrated by Christopher Bing

While we're at it today, I thought I'd mention a few new titles for you to consider this fall season. These are a few of the new offerings from Chronicle Books which were both recently released.



The first is called Lots of Dots, by Craig Frazier, and it's a rather imaginative picture book.

"Some dots are big,
some dots are small.
Some dots float,
and some dots fall."

On each page and for each one-line description of a dot you are given a picture scene with dots located somewhere on it. A drum stick has a dot at the end of it, a ladybug has dots, balloons are dots as is the fruit falling from the tree. It encourages the young reader to explore the world around them and seek out all of the dots they might see. The illustrations are all akin to the one you see above on the cover art. It's very bright and colorful and we enjoyed looking through this one.



The second book is The Story of Little Red Riding Hood and the illustrations in this one stand in a rather remarkably stark contrast to Frazier's Dots!

Illustrator Christopher Bing brings to life The Story of Little Red Riding Hood in a beautiful and breath-taking way. (You might recognize his name as having won a Caldecott for his illustrations in Casey at the Bat. He has a classic way of illustrating, full of the use of shadow and light.

The story is tradition Brothers Grimm and I think the scene where the wolf is taking a bite at Little Red Riding Hood could be potentially scary except for Bing's use of light. Instead the scene looking dark and foreboding, it's easy to keeping reading and reach the conclusion. In other words, I think this book is very well done, allowing the young reader to be able to enjoy the story without overly worrying about the wolf.

I liked this one very much.

Thank you, Chronicle Books, for allowing us to take a peak at these new titles! It's always fun to see which books are new on the scene and it's delightful when you find some that you can really enjoy!