"The Three Pigs" by David Wiesner
Bibliography
Summary
This book is just your standard
three little pigs tale, except that it isn’t! These pigs are a little more
feisty about outwitting the wolf and they end up building their own rag-tag family in the process. It starts
out with the basic huff-and-puff and chinny-chin-chin spiel and then takes a
hard left when the reader gets to the pig in a brick house. The story becomes a
build-your-own-adventure with the three pigs in charge of their fate. They
choose to use the wolf as a paper airplane and jump from one popular story to
the next. Along the way they pick up a few friends before heading back home.
Analysis
Unlike many children’s books, the
illustrations in The Three Pigs are
quite realistic. In the beginning, thing take place in a standard cartoon,
storybook world. As the tale progresses, though, the pigs start to look like
real, farm fed pigs and not shiny pink cartoons. In fact, the illustrator uses
this realism to separate the pigs’ reality from the stories they travel into.
As they draw other characters into their adventure, those creatures also take
on more realistic qualities. The cat and his fiddle develop “real” fur and the
dragon gains color and scales. This helps the standard little pig story become something
more concrete and real for the reader which stimulates their imagination and is
very exciting!
In taking a well know story and
adapting it, Wiesner invites young readers to see that there are different
opportunities and perspectives out there. The symbolism here is quite strong
and the message powerful. The children are the pigs and the various stories are
the places they will go. They too will pick up an odd assortment of companions
along their journeys and they will all, hopefully, unite to make their world a
better place.
Awards
Caldecott Medal Winner, 2002
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