FICTION

The Three Little Pigs Count to 100

by Grace MACCARONE
illus. by Pistacchio. 32p. Albert Whitman. Sept. 2015. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780807579015.
COPY ISBN
K-Gr 2—Maccarone successfully combines teaching complex shapes and numbers, using a number of fairy-tale characters to do so. Mama Pig sends her three sons to seek their fortunes. The first pig meets Rumpelstiltskin and uses his straw to build a cylindrical house, which is unsurprisingly unsturdy. Pig number two meets Pinocchio and buys materials to build a cone-shaped teepee, which also doesn't hold up. The third pig meets a succession of characters, each offering him a larger number of inappropriate building supplies, such as leaves, wool, and peanuts. Finally, he encounters the Gingerbread Man, who has 100 bricks. The story, numbers, and shapes are summarized at the end. Younger children will likely need help interpreting the apple and brick graphs.
VERDICT Cheerful illustrations and familiar fairy tale characters enliven this tale of numbers and shapes.
Reviewed by B. Allison Gray, Goleta Public Library, CA
Three pig brothers making their way in the world encounter various fairy-tale characters who offer them house-building materials (a Pinocchio-like boy has six sticks, a Humpty-like egg has eight bags of leaves, etc.). This amiable counting lesson could do without the muddying introduction to cylinders, cones, and cubes, but the sleek art, featuring nostalgia-baiting Golden Book–style motifs, is sensational.
 , Aug 01, 2015

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