The Three Pigs

Title: The Three Pigs

Author: David Wiesner

Illustrator: David Wiesner

Picture book for ages (approximately) 5 and up

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summary:

This is a picture book which shows a very different version of the Three Little Pigs. The pigs escape the wolf by going into another literary world where they meet other typical storybook characters. It won the Caldecott in 2002.

Opinion:

There is a reason this book won an award it is phenomenal.  It starts with your typical Three Little Pigs scenario. The illustrations are fairly dull and typical of older fairytales. The first few pages had me confused. I could not understand why this man had won any award for these very common looking illustrations, but on page five it became clear to me this was not the typical fairy tale I have heard so many times. The pigs literally start jumping off the page. They leave their confined illustration boxes  and looks animated they’re almost real. They completely ditch the story line and fly on a paper airplane made from the pages of their tale. They then jump in and out of other fairy tales bringing with them a dragon and the cat and fiddle. The best picture in the whole book is the page where one pig gets really large and up close then states they think they can see the reader. This book turned me from a mature, twenty-something, college senior who analyzes children’s books for quality, into a five year old little girl with pigtails who giggles as she reads.

I would definitely use this in my classroom both on my library shelf as well as in reading groups, as a read aloud book and basically anytime I could. The story line and art work in this book are beyond amazing and I can’t wait to purchase it for my students to enjoy.