“Huff…Puff…Grind! The Three Little Pigs Get Smart” by Lois Wickstrom

Huff…Puff…Grind! The Three Little Pigs Get Smart
Lois Wickstrom
Look Under Rocks (2019)
ISBN 9780916176419
Reviewed by Lydia Dehning (age 6) for Reader Views Kids (11/19)

“Huff…Puff…Grind! The Three Little Pigs Get Smart” by Lois Wickstrom is the story of The Three Little Pigs, but some things have been changed. When the story begins, the three little pigs have been to architecture school. Their mom has told them to go build houses of their own because they know how to in this story. The pigs names are Stella, Hal, and Brad.

Stella builds her house out of sticks and saplings, but she does certain things to the materials to make them stronger for the house. The hungry wolf comes by and wants to eat Stella. He says he’ll huff and puff and blow her house down, but Stella knows her house is stronger than the wolf. The wolf blows a lot, but nothing happens to the house. Stella sneaks out of the house to go see her brother Hal. Hal built his house out of hay and clay. When the wolf comes there, he blows a lot again, but Hal’s house doesn’t blow down either. Both Stella and Hal sneak out to their brother Brad’s house. At Brad’s house, he built it out of bricks. The wolf is really hungry now, but tries to blow down Brad’s house too, but it doesn’t move either.

The pigs start to get hungry and start boiling some water to make some soup. The wolf thinks he’ll be sneaky and go down the chimney to get the pigs, but when he does that he lands in the pot of boiling water. The three pigs have come up with an idea of how to help them make bread, and they get the wolf to help them because he is really hungry too.

I liked reading this story because it is kind of like the story of The Three Little Pigs, but it’s also a little different. I liked the pictures because they are colorful, and I like how smart the pigs are to beat the big, bad wolf.

A Note from Mom: The story was smart, and I like how it includes STEM learning through architecture. Whenever a story can incorporate different learning aspects of life in a subtle way, but so that my children will remember it, I am a fan of that.