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Summary
Summary
A wild and funny Southwestern Goldilocks.
Way out West live three bears who like to keep their cabin neat and tidy. But one day while they're out for a walk, a dirty little girl named Dusty Locks barges in and helps herself to their supper of beans. The big bear's beans are so full of chile peppers that she burns her mouth. The middle bear's beans don't even have any salt. But the bear cub's beans are just right, so Dusty Locks gobbles them all up. When the bears come home to find their nice, neat house looking like it's been hit bya whirlwind, they get riled - and Dusty Locks runs home so fast the dust doesn't settle for a week.
The talented team that created Little Red Cowboy Hat works its hilarious magic again in this lively western retelling of Goldilocks.
Author Notes
Susan Lowell comes from a long line of ranchers. She spends part of her time on a small ranch in the desert and the rest of her time in Tucson, Arizona. She is the author of several best-selling books for children, including Little Red Cowboy Hat and The Three Little Javelinas .
Randy Cecill is the illustrator of Little Red Cowboy Hat , as well as The Singing Chick by Victoria Stenmark. He lives in Houston, Texas.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-A humorous and fresh retelling of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" set in the West. The bears live in "a neat and tidy cabin in the woods" and wear cowboy boots, leather vests, and neckerchiefs. When they leave for a morning walk, Dusty Locks, a little girl who "hadn't had a bath for a month of Sundays," arrives at their home. She is so hungry she "could eat a saddle blanket." She tries the big grizzly's beans, but the beans, "chock-full of chile peppers," are "Too hot!" Mama's beans are too plain. And so on. When the bears return and find her asleep in the cub's bed, the big bear growls, "WELL, I'LL BE BUMFUZZLED!" Dusty Locks wakes and vamooses so fast, "the dust didn't settle for a week." Her mother gets ahold of her and scolds, scrubs, rubs, hugs, and kisses her "into a whole new girl entirely." The acrylic gouache illustrations have a cartoonlike quality that contributes to the humorous tone, especially the portrayal of Dusty as a small desperado entering the warm, tight bear family unit. This retelling is not substantially different from the original story, and libraries with adequate collections of the standard version can pass on it.-Adele Greenlee, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Right from the start, readers can tell that this cowboy boot-wearing heroine is a wild'un. Even on the copyright page, she kicks up a huge trail of dust as she determinedly chases a skunk into the woods. Dusty Locks "hadn't had a bath for a month of Sundays" and runs away from home without stopping to kiss her mother good-bye. So it comes as no surprise that this spunky gal hardly minds her manners while breaking into and entering the log cabin of the bear family (consisting of a "little bitty bear cub, just knee-high to a bumblebee,... a mild-mannered middle-size mama... and a great big humpbacked gray-haired grizzly, nine feet tall and cross as two sticks"). While the trio takes a walk to let their red-hot beans cool, she tastes the papa grizzly's too-tangy food, burps after licking the young bear's plate clean and gets "madder than a half-squashed hornet" when the cub's stool falls apart under her weight. Cecil's acrylic gouache illustrations add western flourishes to the setting and costumes, and depict an amusing range of expressions on the faces of the trespasser and her victims. With its zippy lines and range of voices from papa's "rough gruff" growling to his offspring's "little bitty baby voice" this should be a read-aloud hit. The creators of Little Red Cowboy Hat add ample doses of comic hyperbole to pull off another spicy spoof. Ages 4-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary) Here is Goldilocks not exactly fractured (no parody marks the story) and not exactly retold (no sources give a version to retell) but rather relocated to the American West. This blonde is as unkempt as she is ill mannered: ""She hadn't had a bath in a month of Sundays, so everybody called her Dusty Locks."" The stylized costumes (reminiscent of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans's getups) and geographically generated idiom (""I'm so hungry I could eat a saddle blanket"") place the story less in the Wild West and more on the faux frontier of a dude ranch. Still, the language encourages dramatic reading aloud. Dusty Locks begins eating the grizzlies' bowls of beans, starting with the big bear's: ""+Mm-MMM!' At first Dusty Locks smacked her lips, but then she let out a yell. +Ooo-WEE!' A wildfire flamed inside her mouth. She howled louder than ten thousand coyotes. And Dusty Locks said a very bad word."" The flat reds and purples and pinks and oranges of Cecil's palette clash with one another, creating a dissonance much like the havoc Dusty Locks wreaks in the bears' house. Visual harmony only ensues when ""Dusty Locks's mother got ahold of that dirty little desperado,"" cleaned her up, and then ""hugged, and...kissed Dusty Locks into a whole new girl entirely."" (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Lowell and Cecil (Little Red Cowboy Hat, 1997) return to cowboy twists on nursery tales when they take Goldilocks and plunk her down in Montana in this spry retelling of a classic. Hewing to the original fairly closely, Lowell adds a few licks of her own: theres Dusty Locks, a rapscallion who hasnt taken a bath for a month of Sundays, and the bears are a family of grizzlies. Dusty raids the bears digs after they go for a walk while their beans are cooling. She scarfs the cubs beans (the others are so spicy or too bland), busts the cubs stool (by mistake), and takes to the cubs bed when Papa Bears pile of prickly branches and Mamas featherbed dont suit her. When she awakens to the three bears staring down at her, she hightails it home and submits to a good washing. Shed never be recognized with her new sweet scent. Lowell trots out a good bunch of expressionscross as two sticks and no more manners than a pig in a peach orchardand the tale sparks with pert humor: When the bears find Dusty Locks sleeping in the cubs bed, Mama Bear notes, Smells mighty whiffy in here! And though the storys momentum is somewhat on the clunky side, the comedy keeps the wheels turning, as do Cecils pictures of goofy bears in cowboy boots and kerchiefs. (Picture book. 4-8)
Booklist Review
Ages 3-6. Set "way out West," this lively retelling is true to the traditional Goldilocks story, except that the adventurer is a mean, dirty runaway who enjoys the bear cub's beans so much that "she gobbled them all up, licked the saucer clean, and burped." When she breaks the bear cub's stool, she stomps upstairs, she's madder than a half-squashed hornet. The bear family are true to form, and their ritual, "Who's been sitting on my chair?" is as deliciously scary and funny as ever. The western storytelling voice combines the laid-back tall tale with warm affection, making clear that it's that "heavy little roughneck" who invades the bears' cozy home. Cecil's bright acrylic gouache pictures extend the rhythm of the words with a rugged western landscape; a messy, scowling girl; and three bears in cowboy boots, including a great, roaring father bear. Kids will enjoy the play with the original version, but this will also work wonderfully as a first telling of the folktale. Forget that sweet, goody, little golden girl. --Hazel Rochman