Three Little Pigs

Children's Literature

This is not the best in the series of books designated by the publisher as "Flip-up Fairy Tales," but, on the plus side, it is a familiar story and children will be comfortable with it. The wolf, in particular, is unattractive—not in a frightening way, he is just ill conceived. For some reason he is wearing a monocle, which is distracting and, in fact, unless the small dotted chain is explained to a child, may appear to be a disfigured eye. Also off-putting is when he blows down houses his huge mouth becomes a small round hole on one side of his face. Two of the pigs are boys who make unfortunate construction choices and the last is a small girl pig, who builds her house with bricks and who has, unfortunately, lost her usual smugness. Is this politically correct for boys? 2004, Child's Play, Ages 1 to 4.
—Eleanor Heldrich