Today I was talking with a student about Charles Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” (1697) and Jacob Wilhelm Grimm’s “Little Red Cap” (1812) and all the other versions of Little Red that we’ve met in books, TV shows, games, conversations, and our own or shared imaginations. This student didn’t like that the parents never tell Little Red why the forest can be dangerous, or go with her to teach her how to navigate its dangers. Now that my student mentioned it, I don’t like that, either. I started wondering about a version of the story where the parents and the child listen to each other, learn from each other. Help each other. I started imagining a version of the story that started with a different family and a different Little Red.
                One of my favorite things about folk tales is the way they invite us to ask what if, what else, what if we turned another way, or learned together, or met each other anew. So sitting together, while my student wrote her version, I wrote (and I’m just going to give you the beginning!)

                There once was a wolf called Little Red Patch because she’d been hit in the side by a hunter’s bullet when she was only a pup, and ever since, the fur there had grown red. Despite the wound and maybe a little in response to it Little Red had also grown curious. She was curious about the birds in the sky, and sometimes got dizzy from staring up for so long as she listened to their singing. She was curious about the glistening stones in the river and sometimes she dove into the water to touch them. She was curious about the woodcutter nearby and sometimes followed her nose toward the cooking smells that came from his cabin. Her mother told her to be careful.
                “Sometimes humans are scared of us, and they can attack the people they’re scared of,” said mother wolf. “Sometimes they just don’t want to share the food of the forest so they kill us. You can’t go to the woodcutter’s house!”
                Little Red listened to her mother, and for three days she swam in the river looking at the stones and watching how quick the fish were. But…

                In this version of the story Little Red is still curious. But what if Little Red tries to listen to her mother while still feeling her curiosity? What if her mother sees her curiosity, and decides, not to teach her a lesson, but to help her learn how to move safely? What—we might wonder—then. Or maybe your wonder goes off in another direction?