THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

This too is Joseph Jacobs' indelible tale, and hardly a whit different in the telling from the version illustrated by Lorinda Bryan Cauley and listed under Jacobs' name (because the publisher so identifies it) below. But in any respect except garishness, it's the superior picturization--the pigs disarmingly civilized little gents, the wolf a sly, piqued, vengeful old beast, every development illustrated, many of the little vignettes charming in themselves. . . not unlike Beatrix Potter miniatures. True, there's less hair-raising action here than in some renderings, but the fate of the first two little pigs is no less grim--we see the second little pig, apple in mouth, in the wolf's roasting pan. But, turning to the last page (the text is also laid out to good dramatic effect), we see the third little pig, pot boiling at his side, sitting down at a well-laid table to eat his well-earned wolf dinner. A small, carefully composed charmer, with a little world of humanizing detail.