Jerry Pinkney’s straightforward retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” is distinguished by illustrations in which the title character is a young black girl. Pinkney’s lovely watercolor images of nature create a stunning stage for the familiar tale, with Red Riding Hood’s crimson cape a striking visual focal point as she travels through a subdued brown and white forest snowscape to her grandmother’s cabin. The wolf is deliciously realistic, his slinky body suggestive of muscle and danger; a sensibility at once heightened and made absurd once he dons Grandmother’s cap and glasses. Pinkney’s choice to make Grandmother light-skinned reflects the diversity that is embodied in so many families in this welcome recasting of a traditional tale. (Ages 3–7)