Saturday, February 15, 2020

The Three Little Superpigs, written and illustrated by Claire Evans

Publisher:  Scholastic, Inc. 
Publication Date: 2016
ISBN: 978-1-338-31590-5

This story begins where the original tale left off:  we see the wolf as he is carted off to prison to pay for his crimes, and the three little pigs are hailed as heroes!  This is the life they were meant to live:  greeting fans and fighting crime.  Until one day, the wolf escapes and beats them at their own game.  Using stolen bricks from all over Fairyland, the wolf builds a huge wall around the houses of the three Superpigs and captures one, then two, and prepares them for dinner.  Just in time, the always-wise Superpig 3 saves the day by arming his brothers with their jet-packs, and the brothers escape, leaving the wolf trapped in a prison of his own making.  Fairyland is saved once again and its residents stand amazed when they learn that pigs really do fly. 

This modernized adventure of the three pig brothers is bursting with humor, both in text and picture.  Brightly colored and cartoon-like illustrations show the pigs in their new roles, as they take selfies with Red Riding Hood, give autographs to the Gingerbread Man, and dutifully parade Goldilocks away in handcuffs as the three bears look on with admiration.  Meanwhile, the determined wolf plots away in his prison cell, decorated with tally marks, newspaper clippings, and a table cluttered with books about brick-laying, key-forging, and wall-building.  You can’t help but chuckle when, on a tip from Red Riding Hood, the not-so-bright Superpigs round up all the grannies in town and place them in a line-up.  To their dismay, the wolf was “a master of disguise and they just couldn’t spot him”…but smart readers won’t be fooled by the funny-looking granny in a frilly, pink nightgown holding a basket of bricks.  Eventually, the wolf delivers himself inside each of their houses, and upon successfully capturing the first two, he wraps them in pastry dough, ready to become a tasty pigs-in-a-blanket dinner for one.

Children will love chanting along with the wolf page by page as he growls at each little pig.  “I don’t need to huff.  I don’t need to puff.  I don’t need to blow your house down….because I am already inside!”  This is sure to be a book they want to read again and again, and could be used in a study of fractured fairy tales or comparisons with other variants of the Three Little Pigs stories.  The story finishes with “The End?” and leaves kids guessing  about the next adventure the Superpigs might have when the devious wolf strikes yet again.

Honors and Awards:
  • Amazon rating 4.9 / 5
  • Goodreads rating 3.61 / 5

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