The True Story of the Three Little Pigs- Folk Literature

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
By: John Scieszka

Everyone knows the story of The Three Little Pigs from the pigs' perspective. This story details the events that occurred the day that they pigs' homes were destroyed, through the wolf's point of view. One day, Al Wolf was baking his grandmother a birthday cake and suddenly realized that he was out of sugar. He went from house to house to borrow some from his neighbors. He was sick with a cold that kept him sneezing,which was the real reason that the three pigs' home were knocked down. The wolf did not want to let good meat go to waste, so he ate the pigs, since they were already dead, due to the sneeze. At the end of the story, the reader learns that the wolf is telling his story from jail, because he was framed.


Before reading this book, I would have read the original The Three Little Pigs. We would have discussed the events of the story, as well as their causes and effects. Then, I would tell the class that we are going to read a different version of the same tale. I would let them know that the original story was told by the pigs, themselves, and that this version is shared from the wolf's point of view. I would read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and then discuss how the events were different in the story. We would discuss that the story changed based on who was telling it because they had different perspectives of what had happened that day that the houses were blown down. I would then have the students rewrite a fairy-tale of their choice based on the "bad guy's" point of view. For example: The students imagine how the evil stepmother would explain what happened to Snow White. I would let the students share their new fairytales with the class.