Pig Pigger Piggest
Author: Rick Walton
Publisher: Gibbs-Smith
Copyright: 1997
Pages: 31
Reading Level: 2.5
Genre: Fairy Tale Spinoff
Rating****

Summary:
This is a fairy tale spinoff of The Three Little Pigs, in case you hadn’t already guessed it. So of course there are three pigs: Pig, Pigger, and Piggest. One day their father the King called them in and told them how much he loved them, but the house was just not big enough for all of time and it was time for them to go off on their own. So they each went off. Pig found a nice mud spot and he built his house of mud bricks. His other brothers follow suit except, of course, that Piggers mud spot is a little bigger and his walls tallER, and thickER. While of course Piggests mud spot is the biggEST, and his walls the tallEST, and bricks the thickEST. Well one day a witch comes along, and she wants to buy the first pigs house. Surprisingly he says no, not by the wart on her “warty-wart-wart”. So she sends the winds Huff and Puff to blow down Pigs house, so the winds come, and they rain and it makes a big mud puddle. And the same happens to Pigger, and Piggest. The next day the all just happen to show up at the same time at a hut in the forest, the hut of the Witch and her two sisters. And what to do they do? They ask them to marry them, because they love them because they made them the best mud they had ever seen. So if they would marry them, the Witches could make them mud, and the Pigs would build them houses. So Witch, Witcher, and Witchest all say YES! And of course, they all live happily ever after. Some happy, some happier and some the happiest of course:)

Who would benefit from reading this?
This would be great to read to kids along with the classic fairy tales. It has the same back bone as The Three Little Pigs, but with a completely different ending, one that I find to be far more entertaining.

Potential problems/conflicts:
One problem may be that witches could be scary to children. Other than that minuet possibility it is a problem free book.

My reaction:
I loved this version the mostEST of any of the version of The Three Little Pigs I have read. It could possibly be due to the fact that pigs are my favorite animal, but the whole book was fun because it was predictable, yet not. I thought I knew what was going to happen, but the author had changed it just enough that I was surprised. Definitely a keeper I say.