"I think someone's out there."

David Wiesner's 2001 Caldecott Award winning picture book, The Three Pigs is an ingenious rendering of what happens with the wolf from the pig's point of view. The first pig is blown out of the pages of the story as the wolf huffs and puffs to blow his house down. With help from the first pig, all three pigs escape their fate in the world of their story and go tumbling in and out of the pages of other well-known tales.

David Wiesner's illustrations force the reader to interact with the words and pictures on the page. Are their houses blown down? Does the wolf eat the pigs? The reader must pay close attention to the illustrations and to answer these questions. Sometimes, even the wolf does not know what is happening. For example, his page gets folded into a paper airplane and later in the story we see the wolf crouching outside of the third pig's home, wrinkled and confused. Blank pages encourage readers to use their own imagination. And imagine you will when you read this story!

My favorite part of the book is when a pig, looking out at the reader, says, "I think...someone's out there." This story is a wonderful example of how interactive a picture book can be. It will encourage readers everywhere to tumble into all the different worlds a story provides.

Recommended for grades 1-4.

Keywords: pigs, wolves, adventure, transportation.