Big and Bad

by Etienne Delessert. Houghton Mifflin, 2008

In this superb retelling of the classic ‘Three Little Pigs” it is not only the pigs who fear the ‘lean, mean and always hungry’ wolf – but all the animals in the forest! Individually they try to get the better of him – beavers try to drown him, crows pelt him with walnuts, moles dig traps – but it is only when clever cats work together to make a plan, using the three little pigs, straw, wood, and bricks as bait, that they ultimately lure him down the chimney and into the fire. In the end he flies off into the sky, watched by all the animals.
Delessert’s distinctive, pastel illustrations are large scale and daring, for example, Delessert shows the wolf in a hat made from the skin of seven cats, with a chicken foot protruding from his jaw. Not for the faint hearted, but an inticing read.

Reviewed by Joy