The Three Little Superpigs

May 1, 2018
Will the Big Bad Wolf have his revenge on those three little pigs?After the three little pigs captured the Big Bad Wolf in a pot of boiling water and sent him to Happily Never After Prison, the residents of Fairyland dubbed the little porkers THE THREE LITTLE SUPERPIGS (always referred to in all-caps). As the heroes fight crime all over Fairyland (and relish the attention from their fans), the Big Bad Wolf plots alone in his cell. Soon bricks begin vanishing from all over the realm, and the Wolf escapes from prison! All the denizens of Fairyland hide in their homes. Try as they might, the pigs can't find the Wolf or the bricks...until he finds them and uses the bricks to capture the SUPERPIGS. Can they escape his trap--or is their bacon fried? Evans' smart twist on the familiar tale will elicit giggles at its clever wordplay and fairy-tale cameos. The details in the (probably) digitally created, brightly colored illustrations will make repeated readings as much fun as the first--a police lineup of grandmas with an oh-so-obvious Wolf is particularly funny. All three pigs are male, and human residents of Fairyland all present white.A starter fractured fairy tale for readers not yet ready for The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. (Picture book. 2-7)

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April 30, 2018
After putting the Big Bad Wolf away in Happily Never After Prison, the Three Little Pigs become crime-fighting heroes of Fairyland, where readers will see one pig taking a selfie with Red Riding Hood and another giving an autograph to the Gingerbread Man. But then Wolf escapes, and his cunning revenge plan makes it seem almost certain that pigs-in-a-blanket will be on the dinner menu in short order. The action turns out to be an elaborate setup for a joke on “when pigs fly,” and the deux ex machina—a trio of jet packs created by the Third Pig (proving once again he’s the smartest one)—seems a bit rushed and convenient, even for a spoof. But Evans (The Chicken That Hatched a Cow) is an energetic, pop-culture-savvy storyteller: a smart blend of vignettes and spreads keeps the tale tightly paced, and she cleverly evokes the visual and textual tropes of horror and detective movies (there’s even a joke about a menace coming from inside the house). She also has a wonderful way with color, gleefully careening between a happy Candyland palette and chiaroscuro to capture the Wolf at his most nefarious. Ages 4–7.

March 1, 2019

PreS-Gr 2-The three little superpigs are famous in Fairyland after capturing the Big Bad Wolf and sending him off to Happily Never After Prison. The ever-helpful pigs rebuild Fairyland out of bricks and take up a life fighting crime (we see Goldilocks in handcuffs). Meanwhile, the big bad wolf is plotting his escape-readers see him in prison reading "Bricklaying for Bad Guys." Full of rollicking, silly fun, the cartoon style artwork in highly saturated colors matches the feel of the text and adds a lot of humor: the endpapers are hot pink bricks. The whole book is so goofy that adults will just barely cringe at the last joke "pigs really can fly!" VERDICT A good choice for any fractured fairy tale collection.-Hillary Perelyubskiy, Los Angeles Public Library

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