The Take-It Take-It Lady

Czech artist Pacovská’s rawly inventive retelling of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” swaps out the archetypal, golden-haired protagonist for a cryptic character known as the “Take-It Take-It Lady.” Glossy, laminated pages are colored in dramatic shades of red, black, and white, filled in with sharply angled, layered collage forms and carnivalesque figures. The title character has a beak-like nose, wears patchwork clothing and pointy shoes, and earned her moniker because “she always took things that didn’t belong to her.” When she comes upon a little house, she enters through a window and makes herself at home. Those who don’t initially recognize the familiar tale may make the association with the arrival of the bears—crudely drawn in red, marker-like lines. Once the bears discover the Take-It Take-It Lady sleeping in the smallest bear’s bed, she hastily jumps out the window and disappears. Pacovská concludes this wonderfully peculiar staging on a sensible note: the next time the bears go to the forest, “they will make sure to close all the windows in their house!!!” Ages 7–9. [em](Dec.) [/em]