The Goldilocks Variations

Like Mo Willems's Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs (rev. 9/12), this book, with its six tongue-in-cheek variants, is sure to provoke chortles. The Ahlbergs (father and daughter) progress from simple changes in the canonical tale's details and repartee to a version with thirty-three bears (some amusingly "teenage"); in lieu of bears, "Goldilocks and the Bliim" features cute green spacemen with their own names for things; in the next variant, the furniture (chair, bed, porridge bowl, etc.) brings its own point of view to the events; a play (actually a small book glued to a village scene), itself another variation, is enjoyed by villagers and nursery-tale characters alike. The sequence builds to a climax when many of this crew crowd into a cottage to fend off the wolf they imagine huffing outside the door. Not so: he's in bed inside, posing as Grandma. Complicated, or what? But the verbal wit, the delicately limned pen and watercolor art with its plenitude of intriguing detail, and clever touches of paper engineering add up to a barrel of fun. Re-reading will ensue. joanna rudge long