The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!
From prison, A. Wolf claims that a cold, a cup of sugar and fragile houses explain the famous disaster. Lane Smith's mock-newspaper imagery makes credibility a question for both words and pictures.
- First published
- 1989
- Reading stage
- Picture books & shared reading
Reading this with your child
Establish the shared evidence
Recall the familiar pig story first, then list what remains constant in the wolf's account: three houses, destructive sneezes and eaten pigs. Disagreement becomes clearer when readers separate events from explanations.
Interrogate the narrator
Ask which details make A. Wolf sound reasonable and which serve his interests. His polite language and birthday-cake errand do not automatically settle whether the deaths were accidental.
Read the newspaper design
Headlines, mug shots and exaggerated type frame the story as public reporting. Compare how the images support or undermine the wolf instead of treating the text as the only testimony.
Compare before choosing: Both ask readers to judge evidence; Scieszka tests a narrator's account, while Base hides a solvable culprit across text, pictures and codes. View the comparison title →
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