Favorite Versions of The Three Little Pigs

I don't know about you but when I get to our fairy tales and fables unit I get so excited. They are such fun lessons to teach to your scholars. I am going to show you some great books and videos I found to compare and contrast The Three Little Pigs. These were fan favorites from teachers all over as well!

The Three Little Javelinas

The first one is The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell and illustrated by Jim Harris. I love this book because of many reasons. I teach at a bilingual school so the majority of my students are Spanish dominant. I unfortunately am not bilingual and know very little Spanish so I love being able to bring literature into our classroom that the students can relate to. This book is a southwestern adaptation of the The Three Little Pigs and it takes place in Mexico. Javelinas is a southern style hairy hog quite similar to a pig. The illustrations in this book are spot on and really gives the line "not by the hair on my chinny chin chin" realism. Instead of a wolf, they have a the antagonist as a coyote. There are still houses made out of straw, sticks, and bricks, but they give it a southern twist.

The Three Little Tamales

The second book is The Three Little Tamales by Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Valeria Decampo. This book is great because it includes a little back story that uses The Pancake (another version of The Gingerbread Man) but with tortillas that are running away. (Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!) This story is set in Texas. It is another favorite of mine because not only do my students enjoy Spanish food, but is a slew of of Spanish vocabulary included in this one that we discuss. The tamales run away because they don't want to be eaten and they make houses out of sage, cornstalks, and cactus.

The Three Ninja Pigs

The last one which is my personal favorite is The Three Little Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz and illustrated by Dan Santat. This book has a ton of humor in it and will definitely appeal to the kids with the karate action. It is set up in a comic book style with voice bubbles. I love this book and this author has multiple ninja fractured fairy tales if you want to compare more than one story.


After reading a multiple fractured fairy tales to your students, you can show them these short animated shows to have another version to compare.
Here is the Three Little Pigs (The Rocky and Bullwinkle)
Here is The Three Little Bops (Looney Tunes)




Here is a freebie to help compare and contrast ANY book with The Three Little Pigs. There are many books out there; the ones above are just my personal favorites.

Also if you want to take it a step further you can have your student create their own variant of The Three Little Pigs after finishing up reading multiple versions. I have created a graphic organizer, final draft, and reader's theater including a teacher model of each! This is fun to have the kids make their own reader's theater and then get up and read it to the class in their different voices! Grab that in my store HERE!

Comment below and let me know what your favorite version of The Three Little Pigs is!