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The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

Book Summary

Reviewed by Peter Lewis

Don't believe everything you read! In this, the wolf's cockamamie version of the "Three Little Pigs," he goes to the first pig to borrow a cup of sugar and sneezes hard--blowing the house down is just an accident. He eats the pigs--sure, because wasting food is wrong--in this rollicking send-up of the classic fairy tale.

Is It Any Good?

5

This send-up of the well-known story makes fun of the tendency to clean up classic fairy tales to suit modern tastes, and the book is a good introduction to the playfulness of parody -- as well as how a seemingly carefree laugh-along can coexist with deeper ideas. The wolf's wisecracking set off gales of laughter from a library full of 6-year-olds, but there's also a life lesson being taught: Namely, don't be so quick to judge behavior.

Writer Jon Scieszka and illustrator Lane Smith might well have been separated at birth, so perfectly do they fill any holes that may be missing from either text or artwork. Scieszka's verbal pizzazz, combined with Smith's expressionist paintings, leave no gaps to be filled.

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