The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig

From Publishers Weekly
A talented team ingeniously up-ends the classic tale of the three little pigs, and the laugh-out-loud results begin with the opening illustration--a mother wolf lounges in bed, her hair in curlers and her toenails freshly polished, with her three fluffy, cuddly offspring gathered round. The wolf siblings, amply warned about the big bad pig, construct their first house of sturdy brick, a medium which resists the pig's huffing and puffing but is no match for his sledgehammer. Their abodes become progressively more fortress-like, and the pig's implements of destruction, correspondingly, grow heftier, until the wolves try another tack and weave a house of flowers. The fragrance so intoxicates and tames the pig that he and the wolves live together happily ever after. In his English-language debut (see note, p. 55), Trivizas laces the text with funny, clever touches, from an ensemble of animals who obligingly donate whatever building materials the wolves require, to the wolves' penultimate, armor-plated residence replete with a "video entrance phone" over which the pig can relay his formulaic threats. Oxenbury's watercolors capture the story's broad humor and add a wealth of supplementary details, with exquisite renderings of the wolves' comic temerity and the pig's bellicose stances. Among the wittiest fractured fairytales around. Ages 5-10. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 3-"Once upon a time, there were three cuddly little wolves with soft fur and fluffy tails...." They go out into the world to build a house for themselves only to be menaced by a big bad pig. In a clever switch on the familiar counterparts, these sweet-faced innocents use brick, concrete, and steel constructions, but their nemesis is not called big and bad for nothing. With sledgehammer, pneumatic drill, and dynamite, the pig wrecks each structure. "Something must be wrong with our building materials," the wolves muse. Their final house is build from flowers, insubstantial yet beautiful. It is their lovely scent that causes the pig to change his nasty ways and all live together as friends happily ever after. The text has the repeating situations and phrases from the traditional version. Oxenbury's pastel watercolor illustrations combine the coziness of a nursery tale with tongue-in-cheek humor. They are animated and full of personality. Children familiar with The Three Little Pigs will enjoy the turnabout, the narrow escapes, and the harmonious ending. This may also be used to inspire them to develop their own adaptations of classic tales.Karen James, Louisville Free Public Library, KYCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Never mind the other incarnations of this tale--classic, fractured, rapped; this inversion will have children giggling from the outset. Sent into the world by a mother who wears hair curlers, three ``cuddly'' wolves build a brick house, then try to fend off a snarling thug of a pig who demolishes it with a sledgehammer. Their next place is concrete; the pig has a pneumatic drill. They construct a metal fortress, complete with steel chains and Plexiglas; the pig goes for dynamite. Then they build a house of flowers and the pig pulls a ``Ferdinand,'' not only reforming but making it a happy m‚nage … quatre. This latter-day plea for a peaceable kingdom reckons once and for all with the question at the core of this familiar tale--why must pigs and wolves be enemies? Oxenbury provides dauntingly well- executed watercolors, offering such charming contrasts as an angular modernistic concrete home in an otherwise pastoral setting. (Picture book. 5-10) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


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This fractured fairy tale has a subtle message, adding some heart to what otherwise might have been just a clever piece of storytelling. As the title tells, this is role-reversal time, with three wolf siblings heading out to find some real estate. These wolves are no dumb bunnies, however. They go right for the solid red brick model. But a big, bad piggy comes along, and when huffing and puffing doesn't work, he knocks down the house with a sledgehammer. Similar fates befall the wolves' next homes, one made of stone, the other of reinforced steel. It's only when the wolves build a house of flowers, and the pig stops to smell the lovely scent, that contentious turns contented, and the now very good pig moves in and becomes a roommate. The concepts that beauty can facilitate change and that tenderness works better than toughness won't be lost on kids. Both the art and the text are full of wit, but it's especially Oxenbury's pictures that appeal, as the cover picture of the wolves graciously eating their lunches, with napkins spread on laps, clearly shows.


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