25. The Three Pigs by David Wiesner

 

25. The Three Pigs by David Wiesner

Wiesner, D. (2001).  The three pigs. NY: Clarion

This book is a cleaver twist to the original.  It begins just like the original.  The big bad wolf blows down the first pig’s house made of straw.  The pig escapes the wolf in the pages of the book. The wolf then goes to the second pig’s house made of wood and blows down his house.  That pig also escapes in the pages of the book.  The third pig joins the first two in the pages of the book and leaves the wolf in the pig story.  They run and play through the pages They make an airplane out of their story the wolf is still in.  They visit other pages with tales such as Hey Diddle Diddle.  The cat from the story joins them. Then they visit the tale of the golden rose.  They invite the dragon to join them on the pages as well.  They find the page with the third little pig’s house and decide to go back and inviting everyone to join them.  The wolf resumes his task but instead of the pig, the dragon answers the door.  The wolf decides to not pursue the pigs and leaves.  Everyone sits down to a nice dinner. 

The art in the story follows the movement of the characters.  In the beginning, it’s the same two-dimensional characters we see in every version of this story.  When the pigs escape their story onto the pages of the book, they change into more three-dimensional characters.  They are also surrounded by a lot of empty space that emphasizes the change.  If I were to use this story in the classroom, I would use synthesis.  I would gather several different versions of The Three Little Pigs story and do some compare and contrast activities. There are some imaginative variants of the story I have read through the years including The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, by Jon Scieszka, which is written in the perspective of the Wolf. 

I found a great lesson plan on synthesizing the book.  It gives several versions to use to compare.  Imbedded in the lesson is another lesson where students create their own version of the story and perform it as a play.

https://reading.ecb.org/downloads/syn_lp_3Pigs.pdf

 



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