Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz (Children's Literature)
Out of the familiar world of the traditional porcine trio illustrated in the traditional style slink Wiesner's pigs, moving the pages of the story about, folding them into paper airplanes, and sailing into other familiar tales. They pick up a friendly dragon along with other friends as they reconstruct their own happy ending. Wiesner delights in deconstructing pages of illustrations and treating them as building materials. His porkers have real personalities! They also are performers, delivering their lines in speech balloons. Their glide along the empty pages is almost brazen. Their adventure is surreal for sure, but done with joy and bravado that demand repeated visits to experience it all. 2001, Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin, $16.00. Ages 4 to 8.

Cherri Jones (Children's Literature)
Wiesner puts his considerable talents to work reworking the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. Rather than allowing the wolf to eat the first little pig, he sends a three-dimensionally-drawn pig out of the boxed illustration that shows the wolf blowing down the pig's flimsy straw house. The next boxed illustration shows a perplexed wolf looking for his pig. The other pigs follow their brother outside the pages of the book, which we see strewn across a double-page spread, and begin to explore using a paper airplane folded from one of "their" book's pages. Crash-landing into a book of Mother Goose rhymes, the pigs escape into a story about a dragon and rescue the creature from the bemused-looking knight who has been sent to slay him. Back in their own story (and back to one dimension), the three pigs find that the dragon is an effective means of scaring off the big bad wolf. A clever tale that will keep kids poring over every detail. 2001, Clarion Books, $16.00. Ages 5 to 10.

CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 2002)
It all starts out quite fine and familiar with "once upon a time," but things quickly take a very unusual turn in David Wiesner's brilliantly conceived version of "The Three Little Pigs." "Hey, he blew me right out of the story!" exclaims the first little pig after the wolf does his huffing and puffing. And though it takes the wolf a little while to notice, the three little pigs have, indeed, made their escape. They cavort with glee against the otherwise blank pages, then fold one into a paper airplane, board it, and soar into the air. A rough landing leads to a scary foray in a nursery rhyme book full of saccharine illustrations. They leave with the cat-and-the-fiddle tagging along, entering a tale of castles and dragons. When the dragon is about to be slain, the pigs help him escape. Their continued passage through different books eventually leads them back to the original story. But this time, the pigs take charge, and the dragon makes a very powerful ally. Children, young teenagers, and adults, too, will find great pleasure and humor in the unexpected turns of this tale. Winner, CCBC Caldecott Award Discussion CCBC categories: Folklore, Mythology, and Traditional Literature; New Editions of Old Favorites; Picture Books for Older Children; The Arts. 2001, Clarion, 40 pages, $16.00. Ages 4 and older.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2001 (Vol. 69, No. 7))
With this inventive retelling, Caldecott Medalist Wiesner ("Tuesday", 1991) plays with literary conventions in a manner not seen since Scieszka's "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales "(1993). The story begins with a traditional approach in both language and illustrations, but when the wolf huffs and puffs, he not only blows down the pigs' wood and straw houses, but also blows the pigs right out of the story and into a parallel story structure. The three pigs (illustrated in their new world in a more three-dimensional style and with speech balloons) take off on a postmodern adventure via a paper airplane folded from the discarded pages of the traditional tale. They sail through several spreads of white space and crash-land in a surreal world of picture-book pages, where they befriend the cat from "Hey, Diddle Diddle" and a charming dragon that needs to escape with his cherished golden rose from a pursuing prince. The pigs, cat, and dragon pick up the pages of the original story and return to that flat, conventional world, concluding with a satisfying bowl of dragon-breath-broiled soup in their safe, sturdy brick house. The pigs have braved the new world and returned with their treasure: the cat for company and fiddle music, the dragon's golden rose for beauty, and the dragon himself for warmth and protection from the wolf, who is glimpsed through the window, sitting powerlessly in the distance. On the last few pages, the final words of the text break apart, sending letters drifting down into the illustrations to show us that once we have ventured out into the wider world, our stories never stay the same. 2001, Clarion, $16.00. Category: Picture book. Ages 5 to 9. Starred Review. © 2001 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May 2001 (Vol. 54, No. 9))
You know it’s not going to be just building materials and wolf exhalations when David Wiesner does the famous pig trio, and indeed it’s not. Things seem to go according to plan until the wolf huffs at the first little pig and blows him right out of the story; the oblivious text drones on, but the disappointed wolf looks in puzzlement at the pig-free ruins. The second pig flees the story prior to consumption too, and the first two pigs meet up with the third pig and go on a bookish adventure. First they turn a page into a paper airplane and fly through white space, and then they gambol through a library of picture books, finally fetching a dragon from a knightly coloring-book tale and bringing him back to give the poor wolf the surprise of his life. This isn’t the most innovative or tightly conceived metatextual folktale (Scieszka and Smith’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf, BCCB 9/89, still tops the porcine list), but it’s an amusing one nonetheless. The text is pretty much the poker-faced straight man here, with the art pulling the weight of the jokes. Wiesner uses style to great effect: initially, the wolf-and-pig drama unfolds in subdued, translucent watercolor with solid, simplified, literal lines; the pigs become fuzzy and beady-eyed mischief-makers when they exit their story, and they change character as they wander the books, most notably turning candy-sweet in the bland adorableness of the nursery-rhyme scene. Imaginative compositions include not only the airborne pigs in white space but one oinker hogging the page and sticking his nose out at the reader, saying, “I think someone’s out there.” This has the advantage over many postmodern reworkings of making a very light reading demand, so kids whose artistic sense is more sophisticated than their verbal perception will appreciate their chance to be in on the joke. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2001, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2001, Clarion, 40p, $16.00. Grades 2-3.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2001)
In this postmodern interpretation, the style of the artwork shifts back and forth a few times, as Wiesner explores different realities within a book's pages. The story begins by following the familiar pattern, but the art and dialogue balloons tell another tale: the pigs actually step out of the panel illustrations without being eaten and the perplexed wolf remains behind. There's a lot going on here, but once you get your bearings, this is a fantastic journey told with a light touch. Category: Picture Books. 2001, Clarion, 40pp, $16.00. Ages 4 to 9. Rating: 1: Outstanding, noteworthy in style, content, and/or illustration.

Monica Irwin (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 14, No. 1))
This is a unique retelling of the classic pig and wolf fairy tale. In this telling, there is not a happily-ever-after ending. Therefore, some younger readers might be disturbed. For some children, it would not be suitable because it might be too mature. Anyone who has a particular affection for pigs would probably not like this retelling either. However, this book would definitely prove popular among those persons who like irony and uniqueness in their reading material. Each page is filled with colorful illustrations. But what makes this book so unique is that there are some "off subject" pages--almost totally white, a dragon, a children's rhyme, and a comic-book look. One particularly humorous section is when the pigs just "kick out of the book" so they can escape from the wolf. Fiction. Grades 3 and up. 2001, Clarion Books, Unpaged, $16.00. Ages 8 up.