The Three Pigs

To continue our theme around the three little pigs, I examined The Three Pigs by David Wiesner and found that I absolutely loved it.  I think the illustrations are part of why I enjoy it so much.  The use of white space in the book is unique and incredible and I can see why it won a Caldecott award.  My favorite illustration is the one of the three pigs perched atop a paper airplane, their tails pointed our way, as they head off the page in the upper lefthand corner, surrounded by an incredible expanse of white, somehow giving the illusion of an endless sky.

My least favorite illustration is the two-page spread of the nursery rhyme Hey DIddle Diddle.  The funny thing about it being my least favorite is that, in some ways, it is the most powerful.  It’s the first story they jump into and the color change is completely jarring, but it’s also brilliant.  The way that the pigs are one color within the nursery rhyme and their natural color outside it is incredible.   Similarly, I love the black and white drawings of the dragon, and how his head starts to turn a natural green as he begins to leave his story.  I also love that the cat from Hey Diddle Diddle followed them.

Honestly, though, the true brilliance of these illustrations is in the pages of the traditional three little pigs story and how Wiesner manipulated those pages, wrinkling them, twisting them, turning them, folding them, and still somehow managing to figure out what the picture would look like twisted and turned and folded and wrinkled in such varied ways. 

This has become one of my favorite fractured fairy tale stories.  I love reading these types of stories to my students.  The younger ones enjoy comparing the fractured tales to the traditional ones and different fractured tales to each other, while the older students often enjoy writing their own fractured fairy tales after reading a few examples.  The one issue I do have when teaching fractured fairy tales is that my students are not always familiar with the traditional tale.  It often requires some pre-teaching and some exposure to the original tale before delving into the fractured ones.  Still, when done right, the students always walk away with a true appreciation, not just for the fractured tales, but for the original ones and how easily they can be manipulated into entirely new tales to enjoy.

The Three Pigs has 38 pages (40 if you count the cover and copyright pages).  I think it could not have been accomplished in fewer pages and every single page adds to the story, but it does make me wonder if this is an exception to the rule.  I seem to remember a long time ago, learning that there were maybe three different formats for picture books and if you did not adhere to the exact number of pages in one of those formats, your chances of being published were very slim.  Of course, for a successful author, or a truly unique presentation like Wiesner’s in The Three Pigs, achieving an exception to these rules might not be as difficult as for others.

The Three Little Pigs

I have always been a fan of the three little pigs, since I was very little, when my father would tell my brother and I the tale right before bedtime.  He would, of course, tell it from memory, with lots of embellishments and fun voices, for the wolf and for the pigs.  As an adult, I rediscovered the story in many different incarnations.  I have read to my elementary school students many versions of this story, but had never heard of the version by Stephen Kellogg.  I was looking forward to reading it, but truly was not very impressed by it. 

Despite the wafflery and the wolf being wolffled in the end, I simply did not enjoy it very much. Perhaps I found it to be too traditional, but I’m not even certain that’s the right word.  The illustrations of the wolf trying to blow down the houses were certainly not traditional, but I didn’t like them either.  I think the real issue is that the illustrations (the colors, the style, etc.) all seemed traditional, but then the author would throw in these illustrations with the traditional colors, the wolf looking like a superhero and a word like “seeeyooow” spread across the page in comic book style.  It just seemed too out of place and haphazard.

I did think it was interesting that in this version, the three little pigs were given names - something which I believe is rare (the pigs are usually simply referred to as “the first little pig” and so forth.  The addition of the names (Percy, Pete and Prudence) not to mention their mom’s name (Serafina) and the continuing role of Serafina throughout the story (Serafina comes back to save her children) is a definite twist on the traditional tale.

Pumpkin Latte adopted!

Pumpkin Latte has been adopted!

If you remember, PL was the tiny abandoned kitten, no siblings or mom in evidence who hung out on my front porch last October, meowing at Mama Dru to let him in, then settling quite happy in my arms once allowed inside:



Look how tiny he was!
 
Well, Pumpkin Latte is all grown up now.  Check him out in his new forever home with his adoptive sister, Kristin. 

So happy for this sweet boy.

Harry

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion was one of my favorite books growing up.  I thought Harry was simply adorable and I loved the idea that his family did not recognize him when he came home, no longer a white dog with black spots, but a black dog with white spots.

  

What strikes me now as an adult are the pictures which illustrate a very traditional family - one boy and one girl (the girl in pigtails, skirt and blouse), one dad (in suit and tie) and one mom (with an apron and mop in hand).  The story itself is fun and timeless, though some of the ways that Harry gets dirty - sliding down a coal chute - and the illustrations are reflective of the times (the book was originally published in 1956).

The language is mostly timeless, though the use of the words “mummy” for “mommy” and “scrubbing brush” seem a little outdated to me.  There were several Harry books published, but this is the one that I always remembered and associated with Harry.  I always thought of Harry as the little dog who loved to get dirty and who hated to take a bath, something that I think is universal and that children continue to relate to, even to this day.

Mr. Rabbit

I found the repetitive nature of the text in Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present by Charlotte Zolotow, along with the more formal, stilted language, to be a part of this book’s charm as an adult.  As a child, however, I did not like this book.  Therefore, I consider it a minor miracle that it is still sitting on my shelves today.  As a child, I was impatient with the book.  Their conversation was stilted and I knew exactly what each participant was going to say before they said it, so why was I reading it?  I also was very frustrated by the fact that the little girl was only choosing fruit for her basket.  Were there no flowers to be found?  Of course, there were.  There were flowers on practically every page in fact.
Even as a child, I was annoyed by the inconsistencies and inaccuracies of the book.  Somehow they managed to find apples, pears, bananas and grapes, all growing within the woods they wandered.  Well, actually, they found the bananas on someone’s leftover picnic blanket.  On the blanket were dishes and a wine bottle and two not-so-lovely looking bananas.  Which they took.  Really?  Because even as a child, I called that stealing.  And even as a child, I was offended by the fact that someone had just left their entire picnic leftovers on the ground.  That was called littering.

We never actually saw where the rabbit found the grapes, but I didn’t really believe that somewhere within those woods were also some grapevines.  And I was deeply offended by the fact that the grapes were an example of blue.  In what world?  As a child, I wondered why they didn’t pick blueberries.  Why were grapes easier to find than blueberries?  Everyone knew that blueberries were blue and grapes were purple.  Besides which, by that point, I was annoyed with the whole fruit excursion.  I wanted the girl to pick some flowers for her mom and I was really tired of hearing how her mom liked birds in trees.

It’s true. I definitely did not appreciate this book as a child.  As an adult, I still find the book to be annoying.  When I re-read it, I shook my head at the abandoned picnic and mentally rolled my eyes when we got to the blue grapes. 

This book originally came out in 1962 and I think it provides an interesting view into the types of books that were being published at the time.  There was clearly no real checks-and-balances for logic and accuracy.  The illustrator was Maurice Sendak, which was not at all surprising to me, as his style was recognizable.  For some reason, it’s never been a style I truly appreciated.  As a child, I did not like the close-up pictures of the little girl and the rabbit.  They seemed distorted and wrong.  The further away the girl was and the less we were able to see of her features, the more natural she seemed.  The rabbit never seemed natural, given he stood upright like a man. 

Overall, I do not think this book would be published again in our times.  In fact, I am surprised it was re-released in 1990.  I simply do not think it holds up against the much higher expectations we have for children’s books and literature today.

Dr. Seuss

Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss?  I’ve certainly been a fan since before I could read myself.  In the case of And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, though, I simply could never understand why the father was always encouraging his son to observe what was happening and to feel excited about it, but then to always tell the truth without any embellishments.  I’m not sure why, but as a child, this seemed illogical.  In my childish view, by experiencing excitement over what he saw, the child was able to create something incredibly beautiful.  In not sharing that with his father, he failed to share the truth of what he fully perceived.  His father encouraged him to see and feel excitement about the world, but then did not actually want to hear the embellishments this boy came up with in his excitement over what he saw.  Interestingly, I did not see this as a father encouraging a boy to appreciate what was really there, but instead a father encouraging a child to never share what he truly saw. 

As an adult, I am certain this is not what Dr. Seuss intended with this book.  Perhaps instead it was about appreciating the simplicity of what was truly there, about not feeling the need to embellish, but rather to rejoice in what truly was.  Still, for me, as a child, this was a father who did not appreciate the unique perspective of his son - not in these words, of course, but for me, this book was about injustice and the unfair lens that adults often imposed upon children.  This book made sense to me because after all, wasn’t I always, as a child, being misunderstood, told what to do and not to do, without anyone ever asking why I did what I did.  Wasn’t I always somehow the victim of adults around me, my every thought and action dictated by the ones who knew better, who were older and wiser than me? 

Perhaps more than the text though, I truly loved the pictures.  The idea that this boy, with imagination alone, could embellish a simple cart and horse into what it became was magnificent.  Always, this book for me, was about the power of imagination.  As an adult, I think the simplicity of the changing pictures really make the book.  The transition from what we see on pages two and three to what we see in the final pages is amazing. I think, in fact, this book gives us a perfect example of how the white space on a page can become a part of the story being told.  The sheer amount of white space in the beginning that is overtaken by colors, that grow and grow and grow, throughout the book, tells as much of the story as anything else.  As the color spread from one page to the two, as the words are condensed into smaller spaces and the colors of the pictures expand, the reader is taken on a journey through this child’s imagination.

Pumpkin Latte up for Adoption

Pumpkin Latte is now officially up for adoption with TARA (The Animal Rescue Alliance).  He is so incredibly sweet and adorable.  My niece, J, is particularly enamored of him.  “He’s so soft,” she crooned.  “I want to hold him forever!”

He purred and purred and purred for us.  I want him, just like I want Moon and Midnight.  I consider them to be my babies, and it kills me that they haven’t been adopted yet. They are absolutely gorgeous and yet…. nothing so far.

I know the perfect families are out there for each of them.  We just have to wait until they find us.