I have always loved stories about bears. One of the first of these tales to enchant me, and many other youngsters, was Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
I’ve seen many different versions of this story, some straightforward,
some with an unusual spin. Jan Brett, one of my favorite
author-illustrators, came out with The Three Snow Bears a couple
years back, and I found it a wonderful take on the classic story with an
Inuit twist. But I hadn’t realized that she also tackled the tale in a
more traditional form. If I were going to introduce a young child to the
story now, I think Brett’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears might just be the version I would pick.
Brett
retells the tale, but it’s such a simple story with such familiar
contours that as I read it for the first time, it felt like the story
I’d my parents read to me when I was a toddler. A note on the copyright
page indicates that the book was adapted from The Green Fairy Book,
edited by Andrew Lang. I wonder if I ever ran across that version… At
any rate, it seems Brett didn’t have to change much. She worded things
in her own way, and there’s a certain elegance to the sentences, but
it’s also basic and repetitive enough that young children will be able
to recite along with the bears’ exclamations before long.
The
book features only four characters, at least in terms of having anything
to do with the story at hand. Goldilocks is a little girl with long
golden braids who stumbles upon the cottage of the three bears while
they are away from home, out enjoying a morning walk. Brett does not
actually give the bears names, merely descriptions. So instead of Papa,
Mama and Baby Bear, we have “a little, small, wee bear,” “a middle-sized
bear” and “a great, huge bear.” Every time she mentions the bears, she
uses this precise terminology.
Goldilocks and the bears alike
wear clothing that shows a Scandinavian influence. The book never
indicates what country we are supposed to be in; my guess would be
Norway, but I’m not certain. I love the vibrant colors and the intricate
patterns, and I especially love the bears’ cozy home, which is entwined
with trees and rather resembles the abode of an Ewok, the teddy
bear-like indigenous Endor residents from Return of the Jedi. It’s completely charming.
One
thing I appreciate about this version is that it allows me to
sympathize with Goldilocks more than usual. I mean, she really is a
pretty presumptuous girl, but Brett presents her in such a way that she
merely seems endearingly curious, not to mention exhausted and hungry
after her disorienting trek through the woods. Nobody ever seems to give
Snow White a hard time for making herself at home in the house of the
seven dwarfs, but I tend to see Goldilocks as more of a mischief-maker
than a girl in distress. Here, it’s easier to see her in a positive
light, making me wonder whether she would actually flee the bears at the
end of this story or if they would take pity on her and befriend her.
One
of the most distinctive attributes of Brett’s books is her use of
borders. In this book, it’s not as pronounced as in some, but on several
pages, the narrow strips on either side of a two-page spread offer a
window into what is happening elsewhere in the tale. If the main
painting shows the bears at home preparing porridge, we see Goldilocks
on her way in the border. If she is the primary focus of the two-page
spread, we see the bears on the sides, wandering through the woods.
Additionally, these borders give us a glimpse of a family of mice, or at
least a representation of them. It looks as though they are carved in
wood, and the design is quite lovely.
I can always count on Jan
Brett to come up with appealing takes on folktales, some of which are
familiar to me, some of which aren’t. Few tales have been with me as
long as Goldilocks and the Three Bears has, and it’s wonderful to see it in such great hands.
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