Yours Truly, Golidlocks and Extra! Extra! Fairy-Tale News from Hidden Forest by Alma Flor Ada

I chose to blog about Extra! Extra! Fairy-Tale News from Hidden Forest and Yours Truly, Goldilocks, by Alma Flor Ada, because what makes them great is consistent between both of them.  Both of these books use characters from a plethora of fairy tales and tell their stories in a unique way.  Extra! Extra! Fairy-Tale News from Hidden Forest tells fairy tales through newspaper articles.  The lead story is “Mysterious Plant Causes Alarm,” with the mysterious plant being the beanstalk from the well-known fairy-tale “Jack in the Beanstalk.”   An example of another side story is “Italian Village Concerned About Fate of Beloved Toy Maker,” which is the story of Pinocchio.  The articles contain black and white illustrations to go along with the story and, in-between the different editions of the newspaper, are colorful illustrations depicting the newspaper being delivered to the townspeople and their reactions to the events.  What I loved most about this book is how the newspaper contained editorials that showed how the townspeople, particularly L. Feline and Hetty Heeny, had differing opinions on what action should be taken.  It was interesting to me because L. Feline’s and Hetty Heeny’s differing opinions seemed to mirror a conservative and liberal voice.  Thus, the newspaper was very realistic.  Yours Truly, Goldilocks tells a story through the letters the villagers of Hidden Forest are sending to each other.  Each letter is written in different penmanship and different paper and is accompanied by a colorful illustrations that shows either the character’s home or a scene that helps the story’s movement.  In the beginning of the book there is a map of Hidden Forest so readers can familiarize themselves with the area and identify where the action is taking place.   I loved this book and it was definitely my favorite of the two.  The character development is flawlessly amazing and what better way to present it then by telling the story from a variety of first person perspectives through letters.  We get to see the rising action from all sides, including the protagonist and antagonist, and this makes for a very suspenseful story! 

            These books are definitely high quality and could be read just for fun.  They put a new spin on a well known plot and don’t insult the readers by using simple vocabulary. These books would also be great to use when learning about proper letter writing format and newspapers.  The letters in Yours Truly, Goldilocks are written in correct format so students could identify the parts of the letters, such as the greeting and salutation.  I personally do not think letter writing is that exciting of a topic but students would have fun with it if they could write as if they were a character.  This is a great activity because students can really get to know the character whose perspective they are writing from and develop an emotional connection to the text.  Extra! Extra! Fairy-Tale News from Hidden Forest is also written in a format that is similar to mainstream newspapers.  I foresee myself reading the story to the class and then introducing the different parts of a newspaper.  I think a fun activity would be introducing a fairy tale dilemma and have students write editorials from a characters perspective about what should be done like they did in the book.  This is a worthwhile activity for children because it allows them to think about what motivates people and about the complexity of issues. 
Year Published: Extra! Extra! (2007) and Yours Truly, Goldilocks (1998)
Illustrator: Leslie Tryon