Plot Summary:

In this fractured fairy tale of The Three Little Pigs, the pigs are sent off by their mother to seek their fortunes with a word of warning about the wolf’s penchant for eating unwary little pigs. The pigs outwit the wolf at every turn and the wolf returns home humiliated and hungry at the end of the day having huffed and puffed and failed.

Critical Analysis:

Ms. Pope explores what happens when the little pigs are forewarned about the “Big Bad Wolf” that has “a reputation for huffing and puffing and blowing houses down in order to eat their inhabitants.” These smart, enterprising little pigs use Rube Goldberg type defenses to foil the wolf’s attempts to eat them. The true masterpieces of this book are the illustrations by Arthur Geisert, made from copperplate etchings, handprinted, then hand colored using watercolors. These detailed and colorful images allow Ms. Pope to use words throughout the story that will challenge young readers to use context clues to determine their meanings and spark discussions in classrooms. 

Review Excerpts:

School Library Journal – “…woe to readers with any sort of inner logic and an unwillingness to pass over critical missing details. The three little pigs each exert tremendous effort and likely expense on their machinery to thwart the wolf’s well-chronicled attempts to eat them.”

Kirkus Review: “The worldbuilding in the illustrations is thoughtful and elaborate and will have readers poring over the pages.”

Connections:

*Explore vocabulary used in the book: miserable, elaborate, contraption, unbeknownst, engineered, humiliated, infuriated, dejected, foiled, famished, desperate, intricate, delectable, comeuppance

*Discuss the use of idioms in storytelling.

*More “Three Little Pigs” stories:

Scieszka, J. (1996). The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Ill. by Smith, L. Puffin Books. ISBN 9780140544510

Trivizas, E. (1997). The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. Ill. by Oxenbury, H.  Margaret K McElderry Books. ISBN 97780689815287