Book Bus Ecuador
“The True Story of the Three Little Pigs”
"Everybody knows the story of the Three Little Pigs. Or at least they think they do. But I'll let you in on a little secret. Nobody knows the real story, because nobody has ever heard my side of the story. I'm Alexander T. Wolf. You can call me Al. I don't know how this whole Big Bad Wolf thing got started, but it's all wrong. Maybe it's because of our diet. Hey, it's not my fault wolves eat cute little animals like bunnies and sheep and pigs. That's just the way we are. If cheeseburgers were cute, folks would probably think you were Big and Bad too. But like I was saying, the whole big bad wolf thing is all wrong. The real story is about a sneeze and a cup of sugar.”
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| Our new book of the week in Ecuador |
And so opens Jon Scieszka’s “True Story of the Three Little Pigs” or, in its Spanish version, “La verdadera historia de los tres cerditos”. We introduced this book to the Grade 7 children in Puerto Lopez during the week and they were really curious to find out if, and how, this comical parody could set the record straight and prove that the wolf’s “Big and bag” reputation was really the result of a stitch up.
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| Serious discussion ensued |
The classes read in three groups of 8 children, each child taking turns to share the reading with the rest of the group. To add a little spice to the activity and to extract a learning outcome from the story, each group had to come up with “reasoned” answers to the following questions and present them to a “Judge” who was to deliberate the case.
1. What really caused the houses of straw and sticks to collapse?
2. Why did the wolf end up in prison?
3. How innocent were the pigs really?
4. Was the Wolf villain or victim?
With not an inconsiderable amount of mentoring, the groups produced their cases and according to their beliefs took the side of either the wolf or the pigs. A hotly argued
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| Unexpected Canine support for Mr Wolf |
Finally, justice was seen to be done when the Judge ruled that . . .
Oh, but that would be telling dear readers, for you must buy your own copies to discover the Wolf’s story and deliberate on this challenging conundrum for yourselves! And when you have finished the book, why not share it with children all over the world by sending it to the Book Bus for distribution to one of our projects in Africa or Ecuador.
Special thanks to Susan Cassie and Sue Clapham for sending us these wonderful books !
