Book Review of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Scieszka, Jon. 1989. THE TRUE STORY OF THE 3 LITTLE PIGS! Ill. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group. ISBN 9780451471956

 

PLOT SUMMARY

The wolf in the story of the three little pigs tells his version. The wolf was making a birthday cake for his grandmother. He ran out  of sugar, so he went to his neighbor, the pig, to borrow a cup. Unfortunately, he accidentally sneezed, the straw house fell down, the pig died, and the wolf didn’t let the pig’s carcass go to waste. Then he went to the next pig’s stick house to try to borrow a cup of sugar. The same thing happened again. At the third house, he was insulted by the pig who said mean things about the wolf’s grandmother. This made the wolf try to blow the house down. He was unsuccessful. He was arrested. The newspapers made up the story that we know as the traditional story. The wolf claimed his innocence, but he remained behind bars at the end of the book.     

 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Author Jon Scieszka turns this traditional tale on its head, telling the story from the wolf’s point of view. By making the wolf the narrator, readers are forced to see that it is possible for who we normally think of as the villain, to be more of an ambivalent character. At the same time, those characters normally seen as protagonists don’t come off so positively.  

 

This 25th Anniversary edition is beautifully illustrated from cover to cover. The front cover shows what the story would look like as a newspaper headline and story. The back cover reinforces that newspaper imagery and adds a picture of what the wolf might be doing while he is behind bars.  

 

AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPTS

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL Top 100 Picture Books # 35: “It’s the type of book that older kids (and adults) will find very funny.”

KIRKUS: “One of life’s more important lessons is that a second view of the same events may yield a story that is entirely different from another but equally “true.””

NEW YORK TIMES Best Books of the Year 1989: “It is a kind of revisionist history in that it is told by one Alexander T. Wolf, who wants it to be known that the standard version of the story is filled with half-truths, dissemblance, hypocrisy, pseudology, and slander.”

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTABLE BOOK

 

CONNECTIONS

* This book is a great opening salvo into discussions on point of view and how a story can change just by changing who is narrating it.

* Other books related to this one:

Trivizas, Eugenios. THE THREE LITTLE WOLVES AND THE BIG, BAD PIG. ISBN 9780434960507

Scieszka, Jon. THE STINKY CHEESE MAN AND OTHER FAIRLY STUPID TALES. ISBN 9780670844876

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