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Little Red Rodent Hood: 12/22/18
Little Red Rodent Hood by Ursula Vernon is the sixth in the Harriet Hamsterbone series. Harriet and Wilbur are recruited to save a young hamster and her grandmother from weaslewolves. Meanwhile word in the forest is that something terrible is happening to the weaslewolves. There's a traditional doll that tells Little Red Riding Hood tale with the flip of some cloth. Red becomes the grandmother who becomes the wolf. That doll was in the back of my mind throughout reading book six. Red is a metaphorical monster and her grandmother is a literal one. Her grandmother, who in other stories is inside the wolf who is now cosplaying as her, is in fact, a wereweaselwolf. She is ashamed of her affliction and has decided to rid the forest of the monsters who made her so. The weaselwolves have their own agenda too. Their leader has his own secret. And it's tied to Harriet. So there's Harriet who is now the rope in a tug of war because of an impulsive move she made in the first book. Little Red Rodent Hood by Ursula Vernon has a messy situation that is as complex a moral dilemma as is present in The Wonder Engine, just toned down for a middle grade audience. This adventure also happens fit into the road narrative spectrum. By now it's been established that Harriet and Wilbur are destined to be a couple in the romantic sense. For the time being they are best friends but now do most of their adventuring together. For the sake of this book, they are therefore traveling as a couple (33). It means together they are relatively safe — though not as safe as when Harriet travels by herself. The destination is the woods, both for Red and her grandmother's home, as well as the weaselwolves. The woods here are dangerous, not well mapped, and certainly not tamed. That means it's not as magical as a cornfield but still has the potential for surprise. The woods as a wildlands is 99. Finally, there is the road. It's drawn like it's a dirt road, but well-traveled. Since the original blue highways were often nothing more than pounded down dirt, this road qualifies as a blue highway (33). Put all together, Little Red Rodenthood comes in as a 339933. As of writing this review I don't see an announcement of a seventh book. I hope there is one. If there is, I will definitely be reading it. In the meantime, I plan to read through her Dragonbreath series. Five stars Comments (0) |