The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig

This book is one of my all-time favorites. While this one might not be as renegade (I really hope some of you have heard of it), it is a little older, about 1997, but is still a wonderful read for young children. The author Eugene Trivizas puts a wonderful twist on an old classic in this book. Rather than 3 pigs and a big bad wolf, we find ourselves with 3 very smart little wolves and one very, very big and bad pig.

This book starts out as expected, with the mother telling the three soft fluffy wolves that it is time for them to go and build a house of their own. From there the story becomes a little different. The wolves listen to their mother and build a lovely brick house, but they don't call the pig big and bad for nothing. The pig does do the huffing and puffing, but as soon as this doesn't work he knocks down the wolves' house with a sledgehammer, which makes the little wolves very frightened. The story goes on with the wolves making stronger and stronger houses. They try concrete, but the big bad pig destroys it with a pneumatic drill. They try barbed wire, armor plates and heavy metal padlocks, but the big bad pig uses dynamite and blows up the house. Finally the wolves, who are now very frightened with trembling chins and scorched tails, decide to try a different approach to building all together, and make their house out of lots of beautiful flowers. This seems like a crazy idea but it actually works. The smell of the flowers makes the big bad pig clam and happy. In the end, the big bad pig realizes he has been terrible, and ends up living happily together with the wolves in their house of flowers.

In some ways this book has good moral values, because it shows that with a little kindness the pig could learn to be kind too. I love reading this book to children. They all seem to enjoy it. They like how different the building materials are, and seem to find it so interesting when the flower house works in the end. They also love the tables being turned, and the wolves being the nice ones and the pig being the bad one. I find this story just fun to read. I love books that have an original take on classic fairy tales. Fairy tales are nice, but we all hear them so much it is great when someone puts a twist on them to make them more interesting again. I would recommend this book really to anyone. I think everyone would enjoy this fun take on a classic. It is popular enough amongst my students that this is one of the books I have to replace often because it just gets loved to death. I find that is always a tell tell sign of a good read.