The Three Little Pigs

One could spend the better part of a day just tracking down and reading the apparently countless number of versions of The Three Little Pigs that are out there. To get a sense of how many there are, just try a search at amazon.com sometime or browse your local children's bookstore.

My sense is that there are three main categories of these books: the traditional story, postmodern revisions, and regional variations. For the traditional story, check out the Little Golden Book edition or the Disney board book (pictured left). Postmodern twists on the story include Jon Scieszka's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and Barry Moser's version, complete with tongue-in-cheek humor and innuendo for the adults stuck reading the story to their little ones. The regional variations include titles like Three Little Cajun Pigs, the bilingual Los Tres Cerditos, and The Three Little Javelinas. In case you are curious, I only own a couple versions, including my favorite, David Weisner's innovative, deconstructionist, Caldecott-award-winning The Three Pigs (pictured above), described here in an interview at his publisher's website.