The Three Horrid Little Pigs By Liz Pichon

1.  Bibliography
Pichon, Liz.  2008.  THE THREE HORRID LITTLE PIGS.  CT:  Tiger Tales.  ISBN 139781589250772

2.  Plot Summary
The three little pigs will not behave, so there mother tells them they need to move out.  Each little pig steals materials from different types of animals to build their homes.  The pigs do not know how to build their homes and each time the wolf who is a carpenter shows up to help.  The pig refuses the help and eventually the animals come to take back the materials stolen from them.  The three pigs are again left without a home, but the wolf has a nice big brick house.  The pigs decide that they want his house.  The nice wolf lets the pigs move in and teachers them how to build a house big enough for everyone.

3.  Critical Analysis
The author reverses the personality of the pigs and the wolf for a new version of this much loved classic.  The conversation between the characters bring life to the story.  The words are fun to the children and allow the children to interact with the story.  The words twist and turn on the page and change size to work with the action of the story or the tone of the character.  The reader is able to change their voice with the characters to add more life and excitement to the story.
The illustrations of the story are bright and fun.  The bold colors of the images on the pages bring to life the personalities of the three horrid pigs.  The characters become round characters due to the illustrations.  The expressions of the pigs are easy to read and see how bad they actually are.  The distress of the wolf and the animals is also very apparent.  These expressions bring more life and laughter to this classic tale with a twist. 

4.  Review Excerpts
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review:  "If you think you can't jam another twist on a classic tale into your collection, think again."
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE:  "The parody is fun all the way through to the back end pages, which show the reformed, cleaned-up trio."

5.  Connections
This story would be fun to read with other versions of the three little pigs to let the children see the difference versions that are available.
A craft to use with a three little pig story time would be to have a cut out of a house and let the children glue different materials on it to make their own home.  For example yellow yarn to symbolize straw, red square stickers for bricks, and wood chips for wood. 
Other books with a change of characters from the original story:
Grace, Will.  THREE LITTLE FISH AND THE BIG BAD SHARK.  ISBN 0439719623
Laverde, Arlene.  ALASKA'S THREE PIGS.  ISBN 1570612293
Rubin, Vicky.  THE THREE SWINGING PIGS.  ISBN 0805073353
Trivizas, Eugene.  THE THREE LITTLE WOLVES AND THE BIG BAD PIG.  ISBN 068981528