Three Horrid Little Pigs by Liz Pichon (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

If you thank you can't jam another twist on a classic tale into your collection. The full color cartoon illustrations capture the pig's bad behavior and comeuppance with a goofy exuberance... The text work as a fun read-aloud as well as a read-alone.

Children's Literature

Pichon, "who is very nice," offers a clever, funny take on the traditional three pigs and the wolf they encounter after they leave home. These three horrid pigs are so bad that their mother sends them away. "OUT!" she says. "Stop pushing," one little pig mutters. As the first pig makes his "good enough" house of straw, a friendly wolf, who happens to be a builder, offers to help. He asks the traditional question: "…may I come in?" "Not by the hairs…" says the pig, warning him to "huff and puff." And so it goes with the second pig and his "tangle of twigs." "I only wanted to help," says the wolf. The third pig has evicted chickens from their coop and moved in. After being rebuffed by the third pig, the sympathetic wolf invites the chickens to his well-built house of bricks. Cows eat the first pig's house; birds pull apart the home of the second. A rooster drives the third pig out. In this version, the three pigs arrive on the roof of the wolf's house, and a big pot is boiling below them. The surprise ending is a delight. The cover shows the three nasty porkers resembling tough delinquents, and the one with an Apache haircut is sticking out his tongue at us. On the front end pages they are messing up their environment. These are cartoonish characters, anthropomorphic and very pink. No scenery is needed with the action focus, just a few speech balloons and asides, and brief blocks of text with emotion-size letters. The "huff" and "puff" add huge bold black notes. The parody is fun all the way through to the back end pages, which show the reformed, cleaned-up trio. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2

If you think you can't jam another twist on a classic tale into your collection, think again. Three pesky porcine protagonists are so bad that their mother kicks them out of the house. They are so lazy that they merely pile up sticks and straw for houses and one takes over a henhouse. The wolf is portrayed as a helpful handyman who offers to shore up their shoddy construction but is rebuffed each time. Rendered homeless by straw-eating cows, nesting birds who need sticks, and a pecking rooster who reclaims the henhouse, the homeless pigs get ready to head for the kindly wolf's abode. When he hears the pigs on the roof, he prepares a "big pot of boiling...soup" and invites them in. The tale ends with everyone living together happily ever after. The full-color cartoon illustrations capture the pigs' bad behavior and comeuppance with a goofy exuberance. The font size shrinks and enlarges to mirror the action and the text works as a fun read-aloud as well as a read-alone.-Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha Public Library, WI

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