The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf

Written by:Jon Scieszka

Illustrated by: Lane Smith

Genre: Fantasy

Grade Level: K - 3

Have you ever been part of a problem where people didn’t want to hear your side of the story? Maybe you were being blamed for something that you didn’t do! One of our favorite traditional literature characters feels like this is what happened to him! Find out the true story of Wolf in The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs written by Jon Scieszka.

            Alexander T. Wolf (we can call him Al) thinks that the whole “big, bad” persona began because of the diet that wolves have. Maybe if they didn’t eat such cute, little animals we wouldn’t think that they were big and bad. In fact, if cheeseburgers were cute animals, we might be considered to be big and bad as well. Al claims that this entire story began over a sneeze and a cup of sugar. Al then goes on to tell us the real story. He was simply making a birthday cake for his dear old granny when he ran out of sugar. He also happened to have a terrible sneezing cold. Al walked down the street to ask his not-so-bright, pig neighbor for a cup of sugar. This pig, in particular had a house built out of straw and naturally, the moment that Al knocked on the door, the entire house fell in. AL was going to leave the house without a cup of sugar, when suddenly he felt a sneeze coming and as he states, “Well I huffed. And I sneezed. And I sneezed a great sneeze.” As Al goes on to share, the entire house fell down with the first pig in the middle of the pile of straw, “dead as a doornail.” Al, not wanting to waste a perfectly good dinner, went and ate the first pig right up.

            Al was feeling a little better, but still didn’t have his cup of sugar. He went on to the next house, which happened to be the home of the first pig’s brother. This brother had a house made of sticks. Maybe he was a little bit smarter. Al rang on the door bell of the stick house and called, “Mr. Pig, Mr. Pig, are you in?” He yelled back to Al and said that he was busy shaving the hairs of his chinny chin chin. Just as Al was on his way out, he felt another sneeze coming on. Once again, he huffed and snuffed, but he still sneezed a great sneeze. Of course this pigs house fell down just like his brothers, and of course, the second pig was also dead as a doornail when the dust cleared.

            After Al’s second dinner, he went on to the third brother’s brick house, still trying to get that cup of sugar. Al was thinking that this brother must have been the smartest since he created his house with the best material. He knocked on the third door and the rather rude pig responded, “Get out of here Wolf. Don’t bother me again.” Al would’ve bet that rude pig had an entire bag of sugar! He was just about to head home without his sugar when he felt another sneeze come on. Once he sneezed, the third pig rudely yelled to him, “And your old granny can sit on a pin!” Since the pig was so mean, Al went a little crazy and the police showed up! When they arrived Al was trying to knock down Pig’s door even while he was sneezing and huffing and puffing.

            The media found out about the two brothers that Al ate for dinner and jazzed up his story about borrowing a cup of sugar and made up the part how he “huffed and puffed and blew the house down,” turning him into the Big Bad Wolf. Al ended up framed, in jail, still without any sugar and without a cake for deal old granny.

            I decided that this story could be best categorized as a fantasy tale because the animals in the story both talk, and wear humans clothing. More of what categorizes the story in the fantasy genre includes the pig’s homes being made out of straw and sticks; normal people and/or pigs wouldn’t have their homes made out of these materials. One part of this story that I really liked was how Jon Scieszka had some of the original lines of the Three Little Pigs into his version of the story. Throughout the book Al asks the pigs, “Mr. Pig, Mr. Pig, are you in?” The pig also talks about his cold by frequently saying, “well I huffed.” The second Pig tells Al that he was busy shaving the “hairs on (his) chinny chin chin” as the pigs did in the original tale. Also, these pigs created their homes out of the same materials that they did in the original story. Most action that Al and the pigs complete are things that humans can do on a regular basis; bake a cake, ask neighbors for sugar, shave their chin hairs, get arrested at a neighbor’s home, be framed, etc. This story may be more “realistic” if it were humans instead of animals as the main characters in this story, children may believe this story to be non-fiction. The characters speak in the same vernacular that humans do, and the students are in the same “world” throughout the entire story. I think that the theme is worthwhile to the story as students could create their own twists on fairytales; in fact I believe that my cooperating teacher usually has her 3^rd grade students do this in class during the year. The author creates suspense just with the title of the story, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. Every student wants to know what’s “true” as opposed to what may be a lie. I think that suspense is also built as the pig approaches each pig’s home as they are wondering if he’ll finally get the cup of sugar he so desires.

RL K.9. With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

RL 1.5 Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types.

RL 1.9 Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.

RL 2.6: Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.
RL 2.7: Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
RL 2.9: Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures.

RL. 3.3: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator and those of the characters.

RL. 3.7: Explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g. create mood, emphasize aspects of character or setting).