Everyone knows the traditional story of the three little pigs and the big, bad wolf. In this story, the reader looks at the story from a new perspective-Alexander T. Wolf, better known to us as the big, bad wolf. He relates his own version of what really happened as he encountered the three little pigs. This fractured fairy tale creates ridiculous and hilarious moments as Al Wolf tries to explain that this is really all a big misunderstanding concerning him needing a cup of sugar to bake his granny a birthday cake and a terrible cold that he happened to have.
Beginning with the analogy of a cheeseburger to "wolf food," which includes bunnies, sheep, and pigs, Al attempts to gain the reader's sympathy that if cheeseburgers were cute and we still ate them, we would be considered big and bad too. The wolf's rationale becomes more twisted as he travels to each pig's house. After his accidental sneeze leaves the straw house in shambles, Al knows it wouldn't be right "to leave a perfectly good ham dinner lying there in the straw" and compares that to us leaving a good cheeseburger on the ground. The story continues suggesting that the second and third sneezes were due to Al's cold. Al mentions that it was the news reporter that made him out to be the Big Bad Wolf.
Having read this story before, I still found it very enjoyable and entertaining because it is not every day that a children's book is written from the villain's perspective. Every story has multiple dimensions to it. Al suggests that the third pig was especially cruel and rude to him. The creativity of Jon Scieszka brings out all of the main features of the traditional Three Little Pigs story and creates a new tale-a fractured fairy tale. Some of the illustrations by Lane Smith were also unique such as the picture rationale that A. Sneeze + B. Sugar = the real story and the newspaper clipping that announces the wolf's status as the Big Bad Wolf! By looking at the picture and reading the Author's biographies on the book cover, readers see that it stays with the alternative perspective of the wolf. Both author and illustrator have a wolf caricature done of themselves rather than having a traditional photo. Scieszka's captions states, "He has been known to howl at the full moon," while Smith's says, "He lives in New York City and sometimes howls back at Brooklyn."
I feel like this genre of fractured fairy tales can be easily transported into the classroom. Reading this book could serve as a mini-lesson in writer's workshop where students can see that they can take a traditional story and twist it to make it their own. Topics such as these fill students with more ammunition that they can translate to their own papers.
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