Previously

Previously
by Allan Ahlberg
illustrated by Bruce Ingman
Candlewick, 2007

My students are going to love this book! We've been on a read aloud tangent recently -- books that are take-offs of folk tales ( The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Wolf Who Cried Boy, The Dog Who Cried Wolf, Wolf! Wolf!) and books that reference folk tales or fairy tales or Mother Goose rhymes in the telling (Mary Had a Little Ham, And The Dish Ran Away With the Spoon). I was tickled to see two girls sprawled out on the floor last week with Tomie dePaola's Mother Goose searching for half-forgotten or half-learned rhymes.

Previously begins as Goldilocks arrives home all bothered and hot. PREVIOUSLY she had been running through the dark woods because PREVIOUSLY she had been at the three bears' house, and PREVIOUSLY she had run into a boy who was also running through the woods but he had a hen under his arm. A boy named Jack. Who (glad to have this cleared up once and for all) has a sister named Jill.

Ahlberg PREVIOUSLYs the reader all the way back to Once Upon a Time in a very satisfying story that looks back over its shoulder to lots of well-know characters and tales.