The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig

Trivizas, E., & Oxenbury, H. (1993). The three little wolves and the big bad pig. New York: Margaret K. McElderry
Books. ISBN 0-689-50569-8

Plot Summary:

Trivizas uses the traditional folktale of The Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Wolf to base his version of this tale.  The three cuddly wolves are told by their

curler clad mother that the time has come for them to build their own home, but asks them to beware of the Big Bad Pig.  The three wolves build their houses from very sturdy materials, unlike the traditional tale, but the Big Bad Pig still finds ingenious ways to penetrate their homes.  The wolves end up taking a completely different approach that surprises readers with its outcome.

Analysis:

You know that Trivizas was going to do something so different than the traditional version of this folktale when he starts off this book with a wolf mother who is wearing curlers and polishing her nails and calls her wolves “cuddly.” Readers predict and infer that Big Bad Pig will fail

in destroying the houses when they are well built with brick, concrete, and metal, only to read on and find that he has his own secret weapons of sledgehammer, pneumatic drill and dynamite.  The way that Oxebury works on illustrating those sharp angles on the houses, the fur on the wolves, and the setting with the pencil and then the watercolors is great. There is so much detail and depth in them. A great example of that is in the house made of metal plates, metal is gray and flat, but the watercolors add depth and shine to them. The most surprising part is the way that the wolves “beat” Big Bad Pig. The wolves make a realization that their strong and harsh building materials are just not going to keep Pig away and take a completely different route. They choose to build a delicate house frame and cover it with many many flowers; when Pig comes and takes a deep breath ready to huff and puff, he realizes that the flowers smell fantastic. The delicate way that the flowers and that whole setting are illustrated really allow the reader to feel what Pig is feeling — happy & has the realization that he doesn’t want to be bad anymore.

Review Excerpts:

Review on GOODREADS “Eugene Trivizas' hilarious text and Helen Oxenbury's enchanting watercolors have made
this delightfully skewed version of the traditional tale a contemporary classic.”

Review on KIRKUS “Never mind the other incarnations of this tale--classic, fractured, rapped; this inversion will have children

giggling from the outset.”

Grand Canyon Reader Award for Picture Book 1995

Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award for Grades K-3 1996

Connections:

*Art Connection-Art teachers could use the illustrations of the strong architectural buildings in an outdoor setting to
show the distinction between the two, along with how Oxenbury used watercolors to show details in the building materials.

*Makerspace-Teachers can read this book and lead it into a Makerspace build of students building different houses the
way the wolves did.

*Text to Text Connection-Readers can make the connection of the Big Bad Pig who enjoyed smelling the flowers to Ferdinand the bull in the book The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf ISBN: 0670674249.