The inverted title is the first clue that a familiar fairy tale has been flipped on its end. The second clue comes when Goldilocks’s father—a caring man—warns his daughter about adventuring where she’s not welcome. Just like her uncontrollable head of curls, the brazen blond girl goes her own way, leaving her father’s advice by the wayside. Soon she discovers the unattended woodland home of the bears, and the story reroutes to a recognizable scene. Goldilocks tastes the porridge and tests the beds of Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear but is dismayed by the hovel they live in. Scooping out beetles and fish scales from the porridge—terrifically illustrated in Solomon’s signature multimedia style—Goldilocks cannot imagine how these forest folks live! When the bears return, they are angered by the state of their freshly swept home and confounded by the small-toothed, barely clawed, almost bald creature in their beds. Waking up to the sharp snouts and stares above her, Goldilocks escapes through a window and runs all the way home, suddenly keen to her father’s wisdom. (Ages 4–7)

We all know that Goldilocks has a lot to say about the Three Bears. Everything they have is either too hot or too cold or too big or too lumpy or too hard or too soft or too completely, absolutely wrong. Only one of them can get anything right! Just right, that is.

But have you ever wondered, even for the littlest mini-second, what the Three Bears think about her?

Well, it turns out those bears have a thing or two, or three, to say...

Margaret Willey turns this fav-orite classic upside down...because there's always another side to the story....