Consumer Reports: The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf by Mark Teague

When the fickle finger of fate causes three pig siblings to lose their jobs,  the farmer, retiring to Florida, gives them severance pay and sends them out to seek their fortunes.

"LET'S BUY POTATO CHIPS," SAID THE FIRST PIG.

"LET'S BUY SODY-POP," SAID THE SECOND PIG.

"LET'S BUY BUILDING SUPPLIES," SAID THE THIRD PIG.

The third sibling, a rather prissy and practical girl pig, is obviously focused on long-term goals, while her lazy brothers just want to feed their faces.

The three pigs part company to follow their bliss.  The practical pig heads for the home improvement store and spends her money on bricks and other durable building materials and soon is busy with bricklaying and gardening chores. The other two pigs settle for the fairy tale version of shacks, building their domiciles from dirt-cheap straw and sticks.

Everybody's happy, until a somewhat bad and very hungry wolf blows into town. Denied service at Do-Nut Dan's, Hot Dog Hal's, and Pete's Pizza Parlor, Wolfie decides he'll have to find food on the hoof, er, trotter. The two lazy sods scarfing down chips and soda look like easy marks, so he does the Huff 'n' Puff thing on their down-market dwellings.  It's instant domicile devastation!

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WORKS!" THE WOLF SAID.

But when the two pigs flee to their more provident sister's house,the now very, very hungry wolf follows to the third piggy-scented house. This one is solid and somewhat intimidating, even to a wolf of proven windiness. He decides to try their doorbell first, but when they refuse to answer, he falls back on huffing and puffing--all to no avail on this up-scale residence.

"DO YOU THINK HE'S STILL THERE?" SAID ONE PIG.

THE THEE PIGS LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW AND SAW THE WOLF COLLAPSED ON THE LAWN.

"LOOK AT THE POOR GUY," SAID THE LAZY PIGS.

"MAYBE HE NEEDS SOME POTATO CHIPS," SAID THE FIRST PIG. "MAYBE HE NEEDS SOME SODY POP," SAID THE SECOND PIG.

"NEVER MIND THAT STUFF," SAID THE THIRD PIG. "DINNER IS ALMOST READY."

There's more than one way to win over a wolf in Mark Teague's new fractured fairy tale version of the classic, titled The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf (Orchard Books, 2013).His tongue-in-cheek text is set off perfectly with Teague's trademark comic illustrations, with plenty of clever visual jokes for the sharp-eyed reader, including the farmer's cat, duck, and goose who are also squatters at the practical pig's house. Teague's frequent shifts in perspective keep the familiar story line moving along in this twist on the old tale in which the wolf becomes a well-fed member of the pig household, happy and no longer hungry ever after.

An "entertaining and refreshing adaptation of the classic tale," says Publishers Weekly. But if kids still haven't gotten their fill of fractured fare, add a side dish of Lane Smith's award-winning The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and Eugene Trivizas' The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig for a trio of tasty rib-sticking, rib-tickling spoofs of the classics.