‘Once upon many times Little Red Riding Hood’: Introducing contemporary children’s literature to senior learners

Abstract

Inspired by the idea of Lifelong Education, the University of the Basque Country decided to open its academic program to senior learners, creating the ‘Experience Classroom’ College. This college, aimed at people over 55 who are not currently working, offers a specific Degree in Human Sciences. One of the compulsory courses of this four-year degree is ‘Language and Literature’. The aim of this paper is to present the short-term project to teach children’s literature conducted in that course, in which we presented a general overview of the changes that have taken place over recent decades in the production of children’s narrative to senior learners. To do so, we analysed the intergenerational classic tale of the Little Red Riding Hood and compared its contemporary retellings, since this fairy tale is a shared literary reference that has been reinterpreted throughout the history of children's literature according to the social, moral, and literary concerns of each moment. After concluding that most of the learners only knew the Brothers Grimm’s versions of the tale, we read both Perrault’s and Brothers Grimm’s version and discussed their differences. In the subsequent lessons we brought 25 diverse contemporary retellings of the fairy tale to reveal that postmodern trends, a more psychological characterisation of the characters, the social criticism of the modern lifestyle as the underlying theme, humour and parody as a literary game, along with the incorporation of the visual code in its narrative and semantic construction, are some of the features that characterise contemporary children’s literature.