THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

The famous fairy tale gets a fresh outing in verse in this illustrated children’s book for young readers.

In The Golden Ball (2011), Sinclair offered a retelling of the Brothers Grimm’s story “The Frog Prince,” in rhyming, iambic-tetrameter couplets. Here, the author again retools a traditional tale, this time using rhyming anapestic tetrameter, which has the da-da-DUM rise-and-fall rhythm of a waltz. In Sinclair’s version, the first pig builds a straw shack on the beach; the second, a log cabin in the woods; and the third, a brick house on top of a hill. In a kindly twist on the original, however, the pigs escape rather than being eaten, and the wolf runs away instead of being boiled alive. The flat illustrations are sometimes overly geometrical, like construction-paper cutouts. However, they still add color and charm to the overall story, and the pigs are especially cute. Sinclair’s choice of meter scans well—with no thrown-in words just to make the pattern come out right—and it works perfectly with the story’s familiar refrain, which is nicely elaborated: “ ‘Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!’ said the terrible wolf with a terrible frown.” Passages like these beg to be read aloud, and the author even appends a guide to doing so for parents, which explains the poetic form and includes a link to Sinclair’s website and her own out-loud reading. The story also very much lends itself to parents and children adding their own wolfy snarls, piggy squeals and other sound effects. Some vocabulary may be challenging for young readers, but not overly so: “In no time I’ll dine on all three of you most uncooperative swine!”

Amusing, well-crafted rhyme and meter make this a bouncy, fun take on a familiar story.