GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE ENGINEERS

When inventor’s block strikes, Goldilocks leaves her house open to some benevolent intruders.

In this rhyming reversal of the classic English fairy tale, it’s pale, pink-cheeked, straw-blond Goldilocks who owns a home, where her bed, chair, and porridge are all set up the way she likes them. As an inventor, she works in the style of Rube Goldberg—more cartoonish than practical—making “gadgets that could zip your coat / and tie your tennis shoes. / Tools that help you seek and find / whatever you might lose.” Illustrations of the last doodad, for example, show a hat with attached flashlight, magnifying glass, and teeny satellite dish. Bright primary colors, simple shapes, and carefree lines provide a lighthearted silliness well-matched with the rhyme, so that when three passing brown bears walk into Goldilocks’ empty home, there’s no guile involved. “We truly couldn’t help ourselves,” they claim; “we’re three bear engineers!” They add wheels to her chair, honey to her porridge, and new gears to her self-rocking bed. The “innovations” are just caricatures of various everyday devices, but a returning Goldilocks is still delighted to discover them, and she invites the bears back to “make the next big thing.” There’s not much under the surface of this teamwork story (aside from the minor home invasion), but it’s an amusing read-aloud and good for a game of spot-the-screwdriver.

A cute, zany retelling.