Lon Po Po

Young, E. (1989). Lon Po Po. Illustrated by Ed Young. New York, NY: Philomel Books.

Brief Annotation: Lon Po Po is a Chinese Little Red Riding Hood story. When a mother leaves for the day to visit her mother, three sisters are left alone at the house. A wolf living nearby realizes that the mother is gone and goes to the house disguised as the grandmother, they call her Po Po. The wolf enters the house and blows out the candles to make it dark. They wonder why Po Po is so scratchy and thorny, and the wolf tries his best to deceive them. The sisters are smart and think on their feet. They realize that this is not their grandmother and lure the wolf outside where they convince the wolf to get into a basket for special nuts, where they pulled him up high and dropped him to his death. The next day the mother returned safely bringing treats from the real Po Po's and hears the sisters tale.

Genre: Picturebook- Folktale

Grade Level: K- 5th Grade

Readers who will like this: Anyone who loves the Little Red Riding Hood will enjoy this version. Lon Po Po is a fairly easy read, so young readers could attempt it on their own, but if they are very young it would need to be read aloud. Teachers who are doing comparison stories would really enjoy this version of the Little Red Riding Hood tale as well.

Response/Rating (1-4): 4, This was one of my favorite Little Red Riding Hood versions! I thought the story stayed true to the original but added great cultural differences simply through the characters and how the wolf dies. The illustrations are wonderful, and set up in a unique way that grasps the readers attention. It will be one that I use very often in my classroom.

One question you would ask before a read aloud: “What do you think you would do if a wolf came to your house?”