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The 3 Little Dassies (2010)

by Jan Brett(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0399254994 (ISBN13: 9780399254994)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Putnam Juvenile

review 1: From January through March 2014, my preschool classroom engaged in a fractured fairytale unit as a unifying theme for our larger multidisciplinary curriculum. Engaging both traditional and fractured versions of the three little pigs story allowed our classroom community to explore ideas of character voice and perspective, engage in our own construction work (with Lincoln Logs, miniature bricks, unit blocks, clay, etc.), write stories individually and collaboratively, perform Readers' Theatre, and so on.We formally engaged ten versions of the tale of the three little pigs (as well as having several others available in the classroom for informal readings). This version was our seventh in the series and allowed the children to experience the three pigs story with a number o... moref distinctly unique elements -- dassies/eagles (and agama men) rather than pigs/wolves, the specific setting of Namibia with its related African prints and cultural influences, adjusted housing construction materials, and a number of other nuanced plot inclusions that make the story truly its own. The children were fascinated by the dassies and enjoyed Brett's characteristic picture windows on the sides of each page. This was a lovely addition to our unit.
review 2: About a third of the way into this story, kids will recognize it as an African version of The Three Little Pigs. The dassie sisters go out into the desert to make new homes for themselves near the mountains, where it is cooler and less crowded. They don't expect eagles as they build their homes of grasses, driftwood, and stone, but when the sun rises in the morning, an eagle is on the hunt. Thank goodness for the Agama man, a lizard who rescues the first two little dassies. This is not quite a porquoi tale, but close, as the ending explains why the dassies in Namibia live in the rocks and the eagles are black. As always, Jan Brett's illustrations are intricately detailed and telling different parts of the story simultaneously in the margins. That's probably the reason some people love Jan Brett. It's the reason Jan Brett makes me a little nerve-wracked. There's just too much to look at. Makes me kinda crazy. She's extremely talented and, apparently, massively patient, to draw all those details. This fun read would make an excellent springboard for some very basic research on dassies (rock hyrax), African eagles, and agama lizards, as well as comparisons and contrasts with the traditional three little pigs story. less

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