Wolf in sheep’s clothing | Sarah Phillimore | The Critic Magazine

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[–]lefterfield 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What a disgusting book. I think even a child would grasp that the sheep are still in danger at the end of the story. It's made plainly clear that the wolf wants to eat them, was planning it from the beginning - but after a single nice gesture from the sheep we're supposed to pretend the wolf has unlearned biological carnivorism? Aka, predatory behavior? Sick and twisted to try and convince kids this is ok.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

https://youtu.be/lWGZT46TN9E

[–]emptiedriver 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I had to watch this sped up since everything she says is so painfully obvious. It made me wonder if maybe some people didn't see the words and pictures of the book as one product - the pictures very clearly, all the way through the book until that last confusing page, explain that Brenda is a predatory wolf. To me it reads, except for the ending, as a joke about the poor innocent sheep being duped by a wolf in a sheep's clothing. But then, yeah, happy ending to avoid an annoying unhappy lesson, I suppose, missing the point...

I did enjoy listening to the original red riding hood story as it was actually written - the one part she suggests skipping past, funnily enough. Even though we culturally know how it goes it was good to get the details. It made me wonder if the modern age is just more self-aware so can do things by jokes or if parents today have lost touch with how innocent children are and how much they should be told things more blatantly.

But either way, the ending of "brenda is a sheep" needed to make it clear that brenda was still predatory and the sheep were still in danger since obviously she was still a wolf and was not going to be happy with grass stew for long. It would have been more like a Little Red Riding Hood where the wolf feels bad at the end and becomes friends with the grandmother & little red after swallowing them, instead of being killed by the huntsman.

[–]emptiedriver 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

has anyone actually seen this? Do we know for sure it's not meant as a more subtle telling of the fable where the reader understands the sheep are still in danger at the end? I just find it so hard to believe that both the reference to the very famous story and the images which seem to make extremely clear that the wolf is a wolf, are not meant to be grasped.

[–]BiologyIsReal 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You can read the book here.

[–]emptiedriver 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

wow, yea just as that website says, it might have taken nothing more than a wink in the illustration, but the way it's presented does seem to make it look as if the reader is meant to believe Brenda had some kind of change of heart, since the predatory behavior was made so explicit all the way through the book initially..

[–]supersmokio6420 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The author has to be trolling. The wolf's explicitly shown to be just pretending to be nice the entire time they're supposedly making friends, and then goes to sleep thinking about how tasty sheep are.

Why include all that if you're really trying to promote the apparent message of acceptance? Surely if that was the intent you'd show the wolf genuinely trying to fit in with the sheep, not keep hinting that it still really does want to eat them.

The only way it makes sense is if its been created specifically to start a conversation about the kind of thing that can sneak through in these books. Past efforts to call out questionable messaging in childrens books get the complainer written off as right-wing bigots before the book even gets examined, so maybe its just about getting a really blatant example out there?

[–]MezozoicGay 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Why include all that if you're really trying to promote the apparent message of acceptance?

To lower safe guarding in kids, so kids would be more easily persuaded and abused by people who are promoting such book.