GRANDPA KEVIN'S...THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

A picture book offers a rhyming retelling of “The Three Little Pigs.”

“Once, long ago, there lived a big pig. / The pig—a mother of three,” Brougher’s story begins. “Once they had grown,” they said “goodbye with a moan, / it was time, to set them all free.” Mother Pig, wearing lipstick but no clothes, lies on her side in a barn with three pigs nursing. In the next image, she is still nude, though bipedal, while her clothed pig sons walk down the road. Warrick’s digital watercolors in warm tones with dynamic penciled lines render this awkward shift between animal and human modes gracefully. The fairy tale trots on predictably, though with intriguing turns of phrase that evoke casual oral storytelling (“Along came a wolf—you know what he had? / Big hands, big feet—a big head!”). These slight textual innovations should sustain reader interest; the wolf thrice declares: “Then, I’ll huff and I’ll puff—I will blow at the house!” No pigs are eaten in this story. Instead, the villain faces his inability to blow down brick houses (“The wolf’s ego deflated—the pigs were elated”). Some modern items, including a TV, appear in this tale set “long ago.” But the treat here is the appealing, detailed art: sunny, Midwestern pastoral landscapes; lovingly rendered plump chickens; and salt-of-the-earth White farmers more than willing to sell a truckload of bricks to a small, cardigan-wearing pig.

A beautifully illustrated, limerick-heavy, and mortality-free rendition of a classic fairy tale.