Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde

This book is a collection of short stories, all based on the "Little Red Riding Hood" fairy tale. Some of them include woodcutters, some involve wolves, and one has many of the other Grimms tales intertwined. Each story twists the idea of a young girl walking alone through the woods on her way to her grandmother's house. Some of the stories have happier endings than others.

Some of the stories were interesting, and I enjoyed a couple of them. However, the best part of the book is the Author's Note at the beginning. Some of the stories had a nice twist on the 'original' fairy tale, but none of them could compete with the Author's Note.

Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt

Keturah lives in a small village in a little kingdom. She lives with her grandmother, who midwives many of the women in the village. Keturah one day, wanders into the forest, following the hart the Lord of the village has been trying to hunt down. She soon gets lost and can't find her way home.

Lord Death finds her but Keturah tricks him to giving her one more day to live. They continue this pattern while Keturah frantically searches and bargains with Lord Death. As the days pass, Keturah learns her entire village will soon be dead as well, and she must also focus on saving their lives as well.

An engrossing tale of seeing what's right in front of you. There are a lot of fairy tale elements here, and I could barely put the book down.