The Three Pigs by David Wiesner

The Three Pigs, written by David Wiesner, received the Caldecott Medal in 2002. The book was written from children ages five through seven. Wiesner adds a twist to the age-old tale of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, who comes to each house to blow it down. The first pig is blown entirely out of the story by the wolf, and that pig goes to the house of the second pig to tell him to come with him. The wolf is puzzled when he blows the second house down and there is no pig to eat. The two pigs then go to pig three's house and help him escape the wolf as well. The reader then sees the pigs "outside" the story, with pages of a book laying all around. They fold the pages into a paper airplane and soar through the air for a couple of blank (white) pages, until they crash when the page crumples. They wander around for a bit and discover another page hanging down that they decide to crawl into, which ends up being a scene from the Hey Diddle Diddle nursery rhyme. They quickly run out when they realize they are in the wrong place, and the cat follows them. More pages dangle and pig three persuades the other two to hop into a story of a king and a dragon who is about to be slain by the king's eldest son. The pigs rescue the dragon by leading him out of the story, and he thanks them with a funny Medieval-overtoned statement: "Many thanks for rescuing me, O brave and noble swine." Once out, they notice the cat, who greets them with "Hey diddle diddle!" The group continues to wander through a hall of pages, before finally noticing the page with pig three's brick house. The dragon compliments him: "A fine castle, methinks." They decide they want to go home, and enter the story right when the wolf is there to blow the house of bricks down. The wolf begins to huff and puff, when suddenly the door opens and the dragon's long neck surprises the wolf, who quickly runs away. Letters from the actual "story" being told scatter all across the real book's page, due to the wolf's puffing, and the last page of the book shows the three pigs, the cat (playing his fiddle), and the dragon all gathered around the table eating a pot of soup.

I enjoyed this perspective of the classic story of the three pigs. Another book came to mind when I read this book, which my 13-year old son read and loved when he was little: The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith. I liked that book even more than Wiesner's, because the story was told from the wolf's point of view. (I am also a fan of Wicked, which is the story of the Wizard of Oz told from the witch's point of view, but that is another story!)

Even though I am not a fan of comic-style dialogue bubbles in books, they don't bother me as much in this one. I think their use is effective when the pigs are all saying different things at the same time. The comments from the dragon were particularly funny. I also really liked the way Wiesner drew the book pages and showed the pigs climbing in and out of them. When the pigs appear in the different stories, i.e. Hey Diddle Diddle and the dragon/knight story, they are cleverly drawn into the actual story page and you can see they were accidentally put into the page and are trying to escape. The pigs hoisting themselves on top of each other to climb into the dragon story was a very humorous illustration. Finally, the last page of text is very cleverly printed, the letters still askew from being blown away by the wolf, and the last two letters are missing: "And they all lived happily ever aft."

Children should love this twist to the classic Three Little Pigs story. I think they will particularly get a kick out of the pigs flying around on the paper airplane.