The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale Review by Dana G. Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Guarnaccia, Steven. The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale. Abrams: New York, 2009. ISBN 9780810989412

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Three brothers, who are pigs, set out to build homes modeled after the styles of three famous architects, but a bully of a wolf comes out of the nearby woods and proceeds to ruin their fancy artistic homes in an attempt to eat the pigs! 

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale is a fractured fairytale version of a traditional Three Little Pigs story. The differences lie in the illustrations, which are both funny and functional, similar to some of the homes the pigs built, as well as the design of their housewares. This story is an ode primarily to Frank Lloyd Wright, as his concrete Fallingwater house is the one that withstands the most huffing and puffing, but also Frank Gehry and Philip Johnson. Each pig is drawn similarly to  these architects, wearing their particular style of clothing. In addition, the end sheets of the book are drawn to identify all of the household and architectural images (furniture, rugs, pieces of art) that are used, but not explained, in the story part of the book.

The story is also a trickster tale. By the time the wolf gets to the third little pig with the concrete house that cannot be blown down, the pig uses many different tricks to evade the wolf and still get through his day, so he can't be eaten while he is out and about. He also shelters his two brothers at his home.

I'm not sure using this book in a fairy tale unit is a particularly great version for children unfamiliar or unenthused with 20th century architecture. It certainly can be complementary, as it follows the traditional huff and puff model, but for teachers planning a unit on building, architecture and different kinds of homes, it would make a decent addition to the library and reading time because the images also show the steps and materials used in building a home. There are blueprints, building samples, cement trucks, measuring tools, etc., that could all increase a child's vocabulary about how buildings are built. A teacher can also draw parallels between the pigs' identities and the real architects biographies.

The Three Little Pigs: An Architectural Tale relies on the familiar fairytale story, and seeing the pigs in a new light may renew a child's interest in fairy tales. Like many fairy tales, good triumphs over bad in the end, which is comforting, and can also lead to a conversation about how to identify and deal with bullies in the world.

This is a great tale to use for younger children because there's no death, but Guarnaccia does a great job of drawing the bad wolf complete with leather jacket, leather boots, spiked hair and sunglasses. He even rides around on a motorcycle like a bad boy!

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
From Booklist
"As in Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne (2000), Guarnaccia combines a delightfully fractured fairy tale with an ultrastylish, kid-friendly primer of twentieth-century design. Here, each of the three little pigs is a porcine doppelgänger for a world-famous architect: Frank Gehry (who lives in a house of scraps), Philip Johnson (whose house is of glass), and Frank Lloyd Wright, whose sturdy, bring Fallingwater becomes the pigs' refuge from the wolf." 

5. CONNECTIONS
Other fractured fairy tales about the three little pigs to delight children:

• Sciesczka, Jon. The True Story of Three Little Pigs. ISBN 9780670827596
• Teague, Mark. The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf. ISBN 9780439915014
• Trivizas, Eugene. The Three Little Wolves and Big Bad Pig. ISBN 9780689505690

Other books about building for children: 

• Beatty, Andrea. Iggy Peck, Architect. ISBN 9780810911062
• Gibbons, Gail. How a House is Built. ISBN 9780823412327
• Newhouse, Maxwell. The House that Max Built. ISBN 9780887767746
• Ritchie, Scot. Look at that Building. ISBN9781554536962

While teaching pre-school, one of the always popular units with my students was building. We did it all the time in the block area, but any real life connections my students could make to adult jobs that they thought were important were always a hit. Fixing and building things was something my three-year-old students loved to do. So learning the vocabulary associated with building, seeing and using the tools, and learning about the trucks in all of our picture book reading was very exciting.

In addition to the usual blocks, train tracks and Duplos, we introduced the children to building structures out of toothpicks and marshmallows, which is a great way to work on fine motor skills at the same time. We built with different kinds of clay to build-up hand strength and creativity. We drew what the buildings looks like that we lived in and talked about structure (walls, floor, roof, windows). We took a tour of our school to see what else made up a good structure: closets, boiler room, bathrooms!

Children wore hard hats and tool belts around the class pretending to fix bookcases with tools. And, of course, we had lots and lots of trucks. Toy trucks in the sandbox, trucks to ride on, cardboard trucks that we painted and made out of old boxes and trips to Touch-a-truck events in our town. The pre-schoolers were fascinated by all the buildings that made up a town, and by the end of the three weeks, they would engage in side-by-side and interactive play by building a town out of blocks and moving the play people and cars around the town telling their own builder stories.