Little Red Riding Hood a personalised book with your child as the hero

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a cottage at the edge of a great wood. Her grandmother loved her very much and had made her a cloak of bright red wool with a hood, and the little girl wore it everywhere she went. So everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood.

One morning her mother packed a basket with a fresh cake and a little pot of butter.

"Grandmother is not feeling well," she said, "and this will cheer her up. Take it to her cottage on the other side of the wood. Keep to the path, don't stop and talk to anyone, and go straight there."

"I will," said Little Red Riding Hood, and she kissed her mother goodbye.

Off she went along the forest path with the basket on her arm, her red cloak bright among the dark green trees. The birds sang, the leaves rustled, and the sunshine came down in long golden stripes.

She had not gone very far when a grey wolf stepped out from between the trees. He had a long nose and a bushy tail, and he smiled a very wide smile.

"Good morning, little girl," he said, in a soft and friendly voice. "And where might you be going so early?"

Little Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, and she was not afraid. "Good morning, Mr Wolf," she said. "I'm going to my grandmother's house with a cake, because she isn't well."

"How kind," said the wolf. "And where does your grandmother live?"

"On the other side of the wood, in the cottage under the three big oak trees."

The wolf thought for a moment. Then he pointed with his long grey paw to a bank away off the path, where the flowers grew thick and bright.

"Look at those lovely flowers," he said sweetly. "Wouldn't your grandmother love a bunch of them? Why hurry along the path, when the woods are so pretty today?"

Little Red Riding Hood looked at the flowers. They were very pretty. "Grandmother would like them," she thought. "It won't take a minute."

So she left the path and began to pick them. Every time she picked one, she saw a prettier one a little further on, and then another, and another. The trees closed in around her, and before long the path was far behind.

Meanwhile, the wolf took the short way through the trees and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, straight to Grandmother's cottage. He knocked on the door.

"Who's there?" called Grandmother.

"It's Little Red Riding Hood," said the wolf, in a little voice, "with a cake for you."

But Grandmother had good ears, and she knew her granddaughter's voice. She jumped out of bed and hid in the big wooden wardrobe, and pulled the door shut behind her. The wolf pushed the door open and came in, and finding nobody there, he put on Grandmother's frilly nightcap, climbed into her bed and pulled the covers up to his nose.

At last Little Red Riding Hood came out of the trees with her arms full of flowers. When she reached the cottage, she was surprised to find the door standing open, and the little room inside far too quiet.

"Good morning, Grandmother!" she called. There was no answer, so she went up to the bed. There lay Grandmother, with her nightcap pulled down low over her face, looking very strange indeed.

"Oh, Grandmother," said Little Red Riding Hood, "what big ears you have!"

"All the better to hear you with, my dear," said a strange, gruff voice.

"Oh, Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"

"All the better to see you with, my dear."

"Oh, Grandmother, what big hands you have!"

"All the better to hug you with, my dear."

"But Grandmother, what big teeth you have!"

"All the better to eat you with!" cried the wolf, and he threw off the nightcap and sprang out of the bed. It had been the wolf all along.

But Little Red Riding Hood was quick. She dropped the flowers, dodged under his paws and ran out of the cottage, shouting at the top of her voice, "Help! Help! The wolf! The wolf!"

Not far away, a woodcutter was chopping logs among the trees. When he heard her shout, he came running with his axe over his shoulder. The wolf took one look at the big woodcutter and bolted out of the door, past the three oak trees and away through the woods, with his tail between his legs. He ran and ran until he was out of the woods altogether, and he was never seen in that part of the country again.

Then the wardrobe door creaked open, and out stepped Grandmother in her nightgown, safe and sound.

"I heard that wolf at the door," she said, "and I knew he wasn't you. Nobody says 'Grandmother' quite the way you do."

Little Red Riding Hood hugged her very tightly. "I'm sorry," she said. "I left the path, and I talked to the wolf, and I shouldn't have done either."

"Well," said Grandmother, "you won't do it again, will you?"

"Never," said Little Red Riding Hood.

Then Grandmother put the kettle on, and the woodcutter brushed the sawdust from his coat, and the three of them sat down together at Grandmother's little table and shared the cake. The flowers went into a jug in the middle of the table, and Grandmother said they were the loveliest she had ever seen.

When it was time to go home, Little Red Riding Hood kept to the path all the way, and she did not stop to talk to anyone at all.