Book Review of The Three Pigs

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wiesner, David. 2001. THE THREE PIGS. Ill. by David Wiesner. New York, NY: Clarion Books, a Houghton Mifflin Company imprint. ISBN 0618007016

 

PLOT SUMMARY

Three pigs go into the world to seek their fortune. According to the storyline, two of the pigs were eaten by a wolf. However, a subplot shows them leaving the story to safety. Then all three pigs leave their original storyline and go playing and exploring in other storylines. They encounter characters from children’s rhymes and rescue a dragon from a fantasy folk tale by taking him out of his original storyline. Then the cat from the children’s rhyme joins them. Finally, they all return to the brick house of the third pig. The wolf is dealt with, and they all live happily ever after.

 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This is an example of breaking the fourth wall, and of crossover fiction. The pigs break out of their original storyline to move to other storylines. Eventually, they return to their original storyline, bringing a couple of characters from other storylines with them. While the very beginning of the story is true to the original, everything that follows is a new creation by the author. The illustrations do a good job of helping the reader imagine what the author is trying to convey. The drawing style changes as the action moves from storyline to storyline. The original storyline has the simplest line drawings, with pictures from subsequent storylines having different characteristics. The illustrations are detailed and convey the action accordingly.

 

AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPTS

CALDECOTT MEDAL WINNER 2002

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL Top 100 Picture Books # 68

KIRKUS: “The story begins with a traditional approach in both language and illustrations, but when the wolf huffs and puffs, he not only blows down the pigs’ wood and straw houses, but also blows the pigs right out for the story and into a parallel story structure.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “The three pigs land in the margins, which open out onto a postmodern landscape hung with reams of paper made for climbing on, crawling under and folding up for paper airplane travel.”

 

CONNECTIONS

* This story would lend itself to having students write about a character, or characters, from one book meet characters from other books. This is known as a crossover. Crossovers occur in fiction of all types and genres, including comics, cartoons, film, and literature. An early example of crossover fiction in literature was when Tom Sawyer made an appearance in THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Other examples of crossover fiction include types of fan fiction. Since we want our students to be fans of reading and literature, why not let them write their own crossover fan fiction?   

Students can read traditional folk tales, and then write “fan fiction” of their favorite characters meeting each other and interacting.

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