Dusty Locks and the Three Bears - Hardcover

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PreSchool-Grade 2-A humorous and fresh retelling of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" set in the West. The bears live in "a neat and tidy cabin in the woods" and wear cowboy boots, leather vests, and neckerchiefs. When they leave for a morning walk, Dusty Locks, a little girl who "hadn't had a bath for a month of Sundays," arrives at their home. She is so hungry she "could eat a saddle blanket." She tries the big grizzly's beans, but the beans, "chock-full of chile peppers," are "Too hot!" Mama's beans are too plain. And so on. When the bears return and find her asleep in the cub's bed, the big bear growls, "WELL, I'LL BE BUMFUZZLED!" Dusty Locks wakes and vamooses so fast, "the dust didn't settle for a week." Her mother gets ahold of her and scolds, scrubs, rubs, hugs, and kisses her "into a whole new girl entirely." The acrylic gouache illustrations have a cartoonlike quality that contributes to the humorous tone, especially the portrayal of Dusty as a small desperado entering the warm, tight bear family unit. This retelling is not substantially different from the original story, and libraries with adequate collections of the standard version can pass on it.
Adele Greenlee, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Right from the start, readers can tell that this cowboy boot-wearing heroine is a wild'un. Even on the copyright page, she kicks up a huge trail of dust as she determinedly chases a skunk into the woods. Dusty Locks "hadn't had a bath for a month of Sundays" and runs away from home without stopping to kiss her mother good-bye. So it comes as no surprise that this spunky gal hardly minds her manners while breaking into and entering the log cabin of the bear family (consisting of a "little bitty bear cub, just knee-high to a bumblebee,... a mild-mannered middle-size mama... and a great big humpbacked gray-haired grizzly, nine feet tall and cross as two sticks"). While the trio takes a walk to let their red-hot beans cool, she tastes the papa grizzly's too-tangy food, burps after licking the young bear's plate clean and gets "madder than a half-squashed hornet" when the cub's stool falls apart under her weight. Cecil's acrylic gouache illustrations add western flourishes to the setting and costumes, and depict an amusing range of expressions on the faces of the trespasser and her victims. With its zippy lines and range of voices from papa's "rough gruff" growling to his offspring's "little bitty baby voice" this should be a read-aloud hit. The creators of Little Red Cowboy Hat add ample doses of comic hyperbole to pull off another spicy spoof. Ages 4-8.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 3-6. Set "way out West," this lively retelling is true to the traditional Goldilocks story, except that the adventurer is a mean, dirty runaway who enjoys the bear cub's beans so much that "she gobbled them all up, licked the saucer clean, and burped." When she breaks the bear cub's stool, she stomps upstairs, she's madder than a half-squashed hornet. The bear family are true to form, and their ritual, "Who's been sitting on my chair?" is as deliciously scary and funny as ever. The western storytelling voice combines the laid-back tall tale with warm affection, making clear that it's that "heavy little roughneck" who invades the bears' cozy home. Cecil's bright acrylic gouache pictures extend the rhythm of the words with a rugged western landscape; a messy, scowling girl; and three bears in cowboy boots, including a great, roaring father bear. Kids will enjoy the play with the original version, but this will also work wonderfully as a first telling of the folktale. Forget that sweet, goody, little golden girl. Hazel Rochman
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