#85 of 1001 · October 24, 2020

Here’s a book I remember fondly from my childhood: Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jan Brett. This story ranks among the best-known fairy tales, and any of us could surely recount the plot from start to finish with little difficulty. Brett‘s bears dwell in a charming thatch-roofed cottage decorated with recurring motifs of flowers, berries, pine cones and other elements of nature. Her trademark borders, chock-full of textural detail, give readers a glimpse of the characters’ actions while they remain out of the narrative’s focus. A note for folklore enthusiasts: Brett cites Andrew Lang’s version of the tale from The Green Fairy Book (1892) as her source, and she retains much of Lang’s wording, though she has made several noteworthy character changes. In Lang’s story, the bears are described as a Little, Small, Wee Bear, a Middle-sized Bear, and a Great, Huge Bear. Brett, like many modern authors, assigns them family roles, depicting the smallest as a child, the middle as a mother, and the largest as a father. Readers may also be surprised to learn that one of Brett’s title characters fails to appear in the source material: Goldilocks herself. In Lang’s telling (itself adapted from Robert Southey’s original publication of the tale in 1837), the interloper is an old woman. Only in subsequent literary renditions of the story was the character replaced with a young girl, whose name was first given as Silver-Hair, then Golden Hair, then Goldenlocks, and finally the enduringly familiar Goldilocks. #janbrett #andrewlang #goldilocks #threebears #thethreebears #goldilocksandthethreebears #fairytale #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookillustrations #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks