16. The Three Little Pigs

# 16 The Three Little Pigs

Retold by: Lisa Trumbauer

Illustrated by: Aaron Blecha

Publisher: Stone Arch Books, 2009

30 Pages

Traditional Literature

I wanted to use this book for my book blogs because this was one of the stories my mom would always read to me when we were getting ready for bed. When I saw the cover and that the story was retold I was curious to see how this author retold the story. The story starts out like the traditional story does with the three pigs building their houses of straw, sticks, and bricks. The wolf blows down the first two houses, but is unable to blow down the third pugs house. The third pig then tricks the wolf telling him to meet him at different places, but the pig shows up early and never meets the wolf. The wolf finally tries to come down the chimney and lands in a pot of water on the fire. The story ends with the three pigs building their own houses that are all strong and sturdy.

            The illustrations in this books are made up of darker colors like blue, purple, grey, and a dark pink. There is no negative space in the illustrations. The illustrations on each page are set up in a comic book form. The illustrations are very rigid and jagged pictures. The characters in each illustration are not your typical happy three little pigs. These pigs are wild and graphic not well kept pigs in the story.

            This book would be good to use for fourth through sixth grade. The new story is more graphic than the traditional story children grow up with reading. The story could be used in a character development lesson to teach students to keep their word and be on time. The book could introduce a writing lesson for the students to change the ending of the story or even add to the story. A math lesson could be introduced with this book as well. The three pigs had to buy their materials from the peddlers and these scenarios could be used in math word problems. This book does no have any awards or honors.