Too Many Pigs and One Big Bad Wolf: A Counting Story

K-Gr 3--As if a parent is reading a deeply unsatisfying story to a child, whose countering comments appear in red, this version of the traditional story of the three little pigs opens in a few quick sentences. The comments in red demand more, bored by such an uneventful fairy tale. Each subsequent page obligingly adds more and more pigs to the story with a few extra details sprinkled in, but a new critique is always given. Eventually, math problems enter into it, and the story gets so out of hand that there are one thousand pigs as it concludes. By this point, neither the initial reader nor the one commenting in red cares how the story ends; it's beside the point and a good time has been had by all. Not only a fairy tale with a comical twist, this is a unique story that features some fun math problems while always keeping the result of each page the same: wolf eats pigs. This is the perfect book for young readers looking for a good laugh and its bright illustrations are more than appealing to the eye. An abacus is used both in its traditional function (as a counting tool) and to hold the bodies of the pigs themselves. The wolf is illustrated with dark, sketched lines and is almost always accompanied by a prop--a raincoat, calendar, or glasses, to name a few--to keep the story moving along with entertaining detail. VERDICT Better than a read-aloud, this is a read-along, to be acted out, guessed through, or counted out. A fun way to think about too many pigs.--Kerra Mazzariello