Perfect Pigs

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

The famous tale of the Three Little Pigs is available in dozens of versions.

	Paul Galdone’s Three Little Pigs (Clarion, 1984) is a traditional telling of the story, complete with houses of straw, sticks, and bricks and a really bad wolf who ends up falling into a pot of boiling water and getting cooked for dinner. For ages 4-8.
	Steven Kellogg’s Three Little Pigs (HarperTrophy, 2002) is a spiffy update: the pigs have a waffle business; the wolf – who wants to eat pigs, not waffles – is a thug in a leather jacket. (He reforms at the end, but only after a sobering encounter with a hot waffle iron.) For ages 4-8.
	In James Marshall’s personality-laden The Three Little Pigs (Grosset & Dunlap, 2000), the hero and ultimate defeater of the wolf is the third little pig, an imperturbable type who appears in bowler and waistcoat, sporting a cane. For ages 4-8.
	Jon Scieszka’s The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (Puffin Books, 1996) is told from the aggrieved point of view of the wolf, now in a prison cell. None of the pig incidents was his fault, he claims; all he was trying to do was borrow a cup of sugar to make his dear old granny a birthday cake. For ages 4-8.
	Eugene Trivizas’s The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig (Aladdin, 1997) is an even more wolf-friendly version of the story: the wolves, who are cuddly, soft, and fluffy-tailed, build themselves a series of increasingly sturdy houses, only to be repeatedly attacked by the Big Bad Pig, armed with sledgehammer, jackhammer, and dynamite. They eventually tame the beast by building a gorgeous house of sweet-smelling pig-seducing flowers. For ages 4-8.
	Teresa Celsi’s The Fourth Little Pig (Steck-Vaughn, 1992) adds a feisty little sister to the Pig family, who convinces her three brothers, traumatized by their scary experience with the wolf, to relax, go outdoors, and have fun. For ages 4-8.
	Donivee Laird’s Three Little Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark (Barnaby Books, 1990) sets the pigs in Hawaii, where they build houses of grass, driftwood, and lava rock, go surfing, and fend off a pig-stalking shark. For ages 4-8.
	Arlene Laverde’s Alaska’s Three Pigs (Sasquatch Books, 2000) moves the three to the far north where they build an igloo and battle a huffing and puffing grizzly bear. For ages 4-8.
	Susan Lowell’s The Three Little Javelinas (Rising Moon Books, 1992) turns the pigs into peccaries and transfers them to the American southwest, where they build houses of tumbleweed, saguaro sticks, and adobe bricks, and defeat a hungry coyote. For ages 4-8.
	David Wiesner’s brilliant The Three Pigs (Clarion, 2001) is a delightful new take on the tale: here the pigs refuse to stick to their story line but instead turn a book page into a paper airplane and zoom off into the margins, to visit other fairy tales and nursery rhymes. (They even rescue a dragon, who eventually returns the favor, and all end up living happily in the brick house.) For ages 5 and up.
	In Bruce Whatley’s clever Wait! No Paint! (HarperCollins, 2005), the author/illustrator – represented only by a Mysterious Voice – becomes involved in his own three-pigs story; the house of straw, for example, collapses when he spills a glass of juice across the page. Then he runs out of red paint, so the pigs turn green. Finally his subjects revolt. For ages 4-8.
	In Margie Palatini’s Piggie Pie! (Sandpiper, 1997), the barnyard pigs are threatened by Gritch the (green-fingernailed) Witch, who announces her arrival on broomstick by writing “Surrender Piggies!” across the sky. The pigs manage to evade her by disguising themselves as ducks, sheep, and cows; finally, thwarted, the frustrated Gritch goes off to have lunch with the Big Bad Wolf, who still hasn’t managed to nab any pigs either. For ages 4-8.
	In Steven Guarnaccia’s The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2010), the pigs are the very professional alter-egos of famous architects Frank Gehry, Philip Johnson, and Frank Lloyd Wright. All pore over blueprints as they construct elaborate houses from scraps, glass, or stone and concrete – this last Wright’s Fallingwater, to which the pigs retreat to escape from the wolf, a sinister character in boots and a leather jacket. For ages 4-8.
	In Liz Pichon’s The Three Horrid Little Pigs (Tiger Tales, 2010), the pigs are so awful that their mother boots them out to find their own homes. Determinedly horrid, pig one steals straw from the cows; pig two steals sticks from the birds; and pig three moves into a chicken coop. Luckily, when their victims protest, a helpful wolf offers the homeless and repentant pigs a pot of soup and a place to live. For ages 4-8.
	Roald Dahl’s wicked poem The Three Little Pigs features a nefarious Little Red Riding Hood.
	Obsessively Stitching has patterns and a tutorial for making an adorable trio of pink pig finger puppets and a fuzzy wolf puppet, along with house templates. Also see Three Little Pigs Finger Puppets.
	Put on a play! Check out the reader’s theater script for Jon Scieszka’s The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs.