THREE LITTLE CAJUN PIGS

The team behind the award-winning Petite-Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood (2001) now turns their talents to the story of the three little pigs. Harris’s playful and detailed watercolor and pencil illustrations heighten the quirky humor of Artell’s rhyming verse, which is characterized by heavy, but accessible, Cajun dialect. The pigs, Trosclair, Thibodeaux and Ulysse, no sooner build their respective houses of straw, sticks and brick then they are set upon by Ol’ Claude, the gator who “hiss and puff and he make his face frown, / He wiggle a little and turn hisself roun’.” With mighty swipes, Claude demolishes the first two homes with his tail, but when he squeezes down the chimney of the brick house, he is stymied by a roux bubbling beneath him. Figuring the alligator has learned his lesson, the pigs finally cover the pot, allowing Claude to escape. This retelling of the traditional story is Cajun both in language and lesson. Emphasizing devotion to family and extending others the benefit of the doubt, it also conveys the very Cajun notion that there are few situations that cannot be improved with a big pot of gumbo among friends. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)