”Once upon a time in pencil school…” So begins Little Red Writing, a story about pencils whose teacher, Ms. 2, gives them a lesson in writing a story. The birthday pencil wants to write a happy story, the basketball pencil wants to write about sports, and Little Red wanted to write about bravery.

The tale she creates is loosely based on “Little Red Riding Hood,” and comes from her own experiences. She gets lost in the adjective forest, adds too much conjunction glue, and faces the drama of adverbs. When she follows a tail to the principal’s office she discovers something horrible has happened to Principal Granny and she must draw upon her courage to help everyone in the school.

Written by Joan Holub and illustrated by Melissa Sweet, Little Red Writing adapts the well-known fairy tale into a story that delivers a spoonful of sugar to help kids learn about the parts of language that make up sentences. There are lots of puns and plays on words that parents and their children will have fun discovering over many readings. The illustrations are also full of details that will offer new things to discover each time.

The publisher gave me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.