Porcine liberation

I’ve marvelled at the creativity of a couple of children’s books we’ve been enjoying this week. This Caldecott winner by David Wiesner is the most fun.

I’m not a deconstructionist, but this story deconstructs the story of the three little pigs in ways my creative writing teacher in college would have approved. She used to have us twist nursery rhymes from time to time; I remember writing one about an ambulance crunching across fallen branches on its way into the woods to collect an injured Goldilocks, who had collided with the big bad wolf (fleeing from the woodcutter) as she was running from the three bears. The bears were trying guiltily to justify themselves to the other animals for accidentally causing harm to the intrepid lass.

Wiesner’s story begins in the usual way. But the wolf huffs and puffs so hard at the first little pig’s house, he changes the course of history. Look what happens:

What would you do if you found yourself outside the bounds of your story? This pig frees his two brothers, and the three of them wander in and out of a couple of other tales, taking on the illustrative style of each story they enter. Eventually they liberate the cat and the fiddle and a warm-hearted dragon about to be assassinated by a knight. After a bit more exploring, they end up back in their own story, but with the power to change the ending. There’s no place like home — especially if you’re the master of your fate there.

It’s not exactly a read-aloud, because the story unfolds cartoon-style, with the characters’ speech in word-bubbles. I read the words, but on the whole it’s more of an experience-together, observe-together story. My children are delighted by it, and so am I. When all that we read (or for that matter, experience) pools together in our minds, that inner world isn’t much different than the hall of stories in this book: a giant warehouse of characters and plots, and the boundaries between them are often blurry. I love the way this book dramatizes the making of a story as a series of choices, a negotiating of possibilities. It’s a cooperative venture between author and characters. I hope my children discover the same freedom the three little pigs have in this book, and make a place in the world strong enough to withstand the huffing and puffing of wolves.

Images from Amazon.