Salma the little african riding hood

Abstract

Traditional children's stories are characterized by moral teaching and didactic purposes. These folk tales are a broad-based source of inspiration for many authors who have created many adaptations, reinterpretations, updates and recreations of the original tales. Nowadays, children's stories help them develop their imagination and fantasy; explore not only their inner world but also the one outside using cross-curricular issues, such as multiculturalism. Therefore, children's literature is an excellent tool for understanding and exposing them to other cultures besides their own. This is the aim of the writer and illustrator Niki Daly, with his work Pretty Salma: A Little Red Riding Hood Story from Africa (2006). The author draws on the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood (story adapted many times by different writers and publishers), and rewrites/reinscribes the story introducing us a new Riding Hood called Salma, an African girl who belongs to another culture and has different customs to the traditional European Riding Hood. Thus the author presents a modern tale which has many differences but shares some similarities with the traditional one, and encourages interest and respect in African culture.