The Three Swingin' Pigs - Vicky Rubin

Illustrator: Rhode Montijo
For: Kids
Published: 2007
Rating: Fun
Endpapers: Dark Orange

I am always on the lookout for fractured fairy tales - someday I'm going to write a curriculum using them. I stumble on them every once in awhile, as I did a week ago at the library - this was standing up on a shelf above the picutre books. Dark reds and purples and oranges are used in fully illustrated, edge-to-edge acrylic drawings. Much of the easy-to-read font is white on the dark illustration. Its fun to look at, and it's fun to read. It's jazzy.

Yup, a jazz version of the three little pigs:

Satch played sax. Wee-wee-wee-wee!
Mo played bass. Doont-doont-dun-duhhh!
And Ella sang. Scat-scooby-dooby, scat-scooby-dooby, skit-scat-skedoodle, shoooo!

You can hear the music as your read. It reads aloud really well, and I can picture kids taking parts.

...in the Hogland Woods there lived a wolf, and he was baaaaaaaad. On a typicl wolf day, he ate up six coach mice, sate down on other people's tffets, and went around in the most unwolflike of getups. A real bad cat.

It turns out that Wolfie joins the pigs and thye begin a band: 3 Swingin' Pigs and Wolfie. Great fun. Great words. Great music. A cool choral reading (one of my favorite things).