The Three Little Pigs

Marshall, J. (2000). The three little pigs. Penguin Groups.          

                       James Marshall puts a hilarious spin on this classic folktale. In typical James Marshall fashion this story is retold with a few extra details that may split your sides.

                        As in the original story there are three little pigs, each of whom sets out on his own and builds their own house. One of straw, one of sticks and one of bricks. The Big Bad Wolf visits each pig and chases them to their siblings abode, repeating his mantra - Little pig, little pig, let me in until he comes to the last little pigs house. Here the pigs gather and try different ways to trick the wolf, inviting him to a carnival and eventually cooking him in a pot of soup.

                        This story would be great to compare and contrast to other versions of this The Three Little Pigs.  You could use it to discuss perspective and point-of-view. It would also be good to introduce the elements of a folktale.

                         Some questions to ponder are:

• How is this story similar and different to other versions of The Three Little Pigs?
• Which version would you rather read?
• Who is the more likable characters? The wolf or the pigs?

                   After reading up on this book, I found that there is an online version on Weston Woods where the story is animated and read aloud. This could make the story even more interesting to students.

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs

Scieszka, J (1989). The true story of the three little pigs! By A. Wolf. New York: Viking.

        This knee-slapper is a great introductory lesson for teaching point of view. Scieszka retells the original fairy tale from the Big Bad Wolf's point of view with a hilarious spin on what really happened!

 

 

 

        The setting of this story is similar to the original version, a wooded area where the three pigs have constructed houses of straw, sticks and bricks. The characters are also the same however their roles are reversed - the three pigs are rude and crude with hateful attitudes while the protagonist wolf is simply on a mission to bake his dear granny a birthday cake. The pigs run into a similar fate as the wolf travels from house to house but the wolf has a clever justification for his devouring of the pigs. When the wolf encounters the last little pig he runs into a BIG problem with even BIGGER consequences.

         The True Story of the Three Little Pigs would be a great introduction for point-of-view and perspective. It would also be a great text for comparing and contrasting similar books with similar characters and recounting folktales - all of which are huge in the Common Core standards for third grade. To really hit home on the point-of-view side students could conduct a trial for the wolf in which they must defend their point-of-view. This would also easily lend to the use of a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two versions of the story.

         I was drawn to this text because a colleague of mine had recently used it in her classroom and raved about the participation and excitement it had ignited in her students and how easily the concepts and topics were to present based on the text. I am very excited to use this in my next point-of-view unit! Some BIG questions to ponder are:

• How is this text similar/different to other versions of The Three Little Pigs? Which do you prefer? Justify your answer.
• How would this story be different if the wolf was a chicken or other weak animal?
• Why do you think wolves are used in so many stories to depict evil characters? What other animals could be used in the place of an evil characters? What animals would seem silly as an evil character?

I can't wait to use this book in my classrom - I've already bought a helpful unit on www.teacherspayteachers.com . I'm looking forward to using it!