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Huff & Puff: Can You Blow Down the Houses of the Three Little Pigs?
This interactive retelling of the Three Little Pigs story allows the reader to play the part of the big bad wolf. Three interior die-cut holes invite readers to huff, puff, and blow the pigs’ houses down! This fractured fairy tale ends sweetly when, rather than blowing down the third pig’s brick home, the wolf/reader blows out the candles on a cake baked by the pigs! A satisfying and engaging read for every young Three Little Pigs fan.
Praise for Huff & Puff "Simple but wonderfully expressive, the illustrations are ink drawings with pale washes of tan, pink, yellow, and blue. A beautifully designed and wholly engaging picture book for young children."
– Booklist
"Sure to be a family favorite."
– Shelf-Awareness
“A good chance for youngsters to relish enacting the wicked role while still getting a friendly reconciliation at the end.”
– Kirkus Reviews
"Very young readers will get a kick out of taking the wolf’s part, and their parents will appreciate that the scariest bits of the original tale have been omitted."
– School Library Journal
"Like her repetitive text, Rueda’s illustrations are gently funny and elegantly simple."
– Horn Book
"The reader is encouraged to follow the pigs into the book."
– Library Media Connection
Praise for Huff & Puff "Simple but wonderfully expressive, the illustrations are ink drawings with pale washes of tan, pink, yellow, and blue. A beautifully designed and wholly engaging picture book for young children."
– Booklist
"Sure to be a family favorite."
– Shelf-Awareness
“A good chance for youngsters to relish enacting the wicked role while still getting a friendly reconciliation at the end.”
– Kirkus Reviews
"Very young readers will get a kick out of taking the wolf’s part, and their parents will appreciate that the scariest bits of the original tale have been omitted."
– School Library Journal
"Like her repetitive text, Rueda’s illustrations are gently funny and elegantly simple."
– Horn Book
"The reader is encouraged to follow the pigs into the book."
– Library Media Connection
32 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
3 people are currently reading
234 people want to read
About the author
Claudia Rueda
65 books84 followersClaudia Rueda is a Colombian picture book author, New York Times Best Seller illustrator and a 2016 Hans Christian Andersen and Astrid Lindgren award nominee. Her books have been published throughout North America, Europe and Asia and have been translated into more than ten different languages.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
February 19, 2022
Fun interactive book with a different ending
May 15, 2012
I think this will be great to use in both Toddler and Preschool storytime. It uses a classic tale and makes it fun, funny, and participatory. I can't wait to try it out with a group of kiddos!
My main reason for not giving it more stars is that I felt the die cut holes took away from the book design as a whole. I understand that they give a little more oomph to the huffing and puffing experience, and I enjoyed them through first pig and second pig. However, I really disliked that on a couple of the spreads, when you are looking at the back side of the hole, you can see words from the previous page. So, after you read the next line, you have a word fragment like "fing" that gets in the way and makes no sense. I don't know if this was a printing error or a book design error, but either way, it is bothersome.
My main reason for not giving it more stars is that I felt the die cut holes took away from the book design as a whole. I understand that they give a little more oomph to the huffing and puffing experience, and I enjoyed them through first pig and second pig. However, I really disliked that on a couple of the spreads, when you are looking at the back side of the hole, you can see words from the previous page. So, after you read the next line, you have a word fragment like "fing" that gets in the way and makes no sense. I don't know if this was a printing error or a book design error, but either way, it is bothersome.
November 6, 2021
Great for a toddler storytime.
September 24, 2012
1. Genre: Traditional Literature
2. Summary: This book tells the story of the three little pigs through simple text, illustration, and the ability to make it interactive through the storytelling. The same story that we all remember as children is told, with a happy ending where the wolf blows the candles out on a cake and they all share it and “live happily ever after”.
3. Critique:
(a) Comment: Although the text is simple, the story is still accurate and retold just as the original story was told for the most part. The ending is the only difference from the original story. The illustrations, just like the text, are simple, yet accurate and are appropriate given the simplicity of the text. The text and illustrations seem to be geared toward a young audience, which is appropriate given the story itself. The author clearly understands the original story and created an ending appropriate for the age group that would be most attracted to this story.
(b) The simplicity of the text and illustrations are effective and appropriate. The author also provides an interactive element by creating holes in the pages where the wolf “huffs and puffs”, and prompting for the listener to provide the huffing and puffing. Young audiences would love this aspect of the story, and it provides a wonderful and unexpected element to the story. I do feel that the author could have created more text to add extra elements to the story, and fear that perhaps the story is too simplistic, even for very young audiences.
(c) The text reads, for example on page 1, “First pig building a house.” All the text is simplistic in this way. This sentence is the entire page of text. I fear that this may be too simple. However, the interaction prompted on various pages, such as page 6, to “Huff & Puff”, is a nice element that will motivate the listener to participate and become an active participant in the story.
4. This book would be a wonderful addition to a preschool curriculum that involved lessons about being nice to others, or perhaps working together instead of individually to arrive at a good situation.
Citation: Rueda, Claudia (2012). Huff & Puff, Abrams Appleseed, China
2. Summary: This book tells the story of the three little pigs through simple text, illustration, and the ability to make it interactive through the storytelling. The same story that we all remember as children is told, with a happy ending where the wolf blows the candles out on a cake and they all share it and “live happily ever after”.
3. Critique:
(a) Comment: Although the text is simple, the story is still accurate and retold just as the original story was told for the most part. The ending is the only difference from the original story. The illustrations, just like the text, are simple, yet accurate and are appropriate given the simplicity of the text. The text and illustrations seem to be geared toward a young audience, which is appropriate given the story itself. The author clearly understands the original story and created an ending appropriate for the age group that would be most attracted to this story.
(b) The simplicity of the text and illustrations are effective and appropriate. The author also provides an interactive element by creating holes in the pages where the wolf “huffs and puffs”, and prompting for the listener to provide the huffing and puffing. Young audiences would love this aspect of the story, and it provides a wonderful and unexpected element to the story. I do feel that the author could have created more text to add extra elements to the story, and fear that perhaps the story is too simplistic, even for very young audiences.
(c) The text reads, for example on page 1, “First pig building a house.” All the text is simplistic in this way. This sentence is the entire page of text. I fear that this may be too simple. However, the interaction prompted on various pages, such as page 6, to “Huff & Puff”, is a nice element that will motivate the listener to participate and become an active participant in the story.
4. This book would be a wonderful addition to a preschool curriculum that involved lessons about being nice to others, or perhaps working together instead of individually to arrive at a good situation.
Citation: Rueda, Claudia (2012). Huff & Puff, Abrams Appleseed, China
May 10, 2012
In this particular tale Rueda sticks just with The Three Little Pigs. But oh what great pigs they are! They look so cute! I think they would be very fun plush toys to snuggle. I can't wait to try this one in my preschool story time. Anyway, back to the book. The main charmer about this one is that there are small holes in a few of the pages and "you" are the wolf that has to blow through the hole to try and "huff & puff" to blow down the houses. With a fun twist at the end that is totally opposite of any traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs. But in this case I highly approve of the cake...er...I mean twist. Because who doesn't love cake...uh...I mean twists in fairy tales? Did I mention I like cake? I wonder why that thought keeps coming back to my head. Perhaps I should go read the book again to remind myself of why. Although I prefer vanilla cake...
February 26, 2019
A pretty sanitized version of the classic story, this one has the on the final page. The drawings are detailed and awesome, but the cut outs for the kids to blow through on the "Huff & Puff" pages are just dumb and gimmicky. First off, it just encourages all my story time kids to spit on the book, which is not cool. Second, the holes are weirdly spaced and the parts of the pictures you can see through the holes really detracts from the story. They are just silly and the book would be better without them.
The story itself is fun and incredibly simple - great for a read aloud to toddlers, but not really enough for most preschoolers.
The story itself is fun and incredibly simple - great for a read aloud to toddlers, but not really enough for most preschoolers.
October 1, 2017
This is a very simple story with low level vocabulary, but lots of fun. It has an interesting message for the reader. The three pigs each build a house and Huff and Puff knocks down two of them. The third one cannot be blown down. On the last page, he blows out the candles on a cake. Now all three pigs AND the wolf are "happy." This book is very funny. Great illustrations throughout. The reader gets to huff and puff through a hole in the middle of several pages. Highly recommended for Grades K-2.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 10, 2018
3.5*
A great retelling of the traditional "Three Pigs" story. With fundamental vocabulary and creative drawings, it will surely be a hit with the kids. I liked the interactivity of the book, although the words did not quite encourage the interactivity as well as they should have. It took me a few minutes to figure out exactly what the holes in the pages were for.
A great retelling of the traditional "Three Pigs" story. With fundamental vocabulary and creative drawings, it will surely be a hit with the kids. I liked the interactivity of the book, although the words did not quite encourage the interactivity as well as they should have. It took me a few minutes to figure out exactly what the holes in the pages were for.
June 25, 2018
A cute retelling of The Three little Pigs story. I thought the cut-out was creative but as I watched children blowing through it, I thought it unwise as a choice for a library collection, due to the possible spread of illnesses.
July 21, 2018
This version of the three little pigs has an interactive element that made it fun and different than other books. My son thought the hole in the page for him to blow into was so fun and he liked getting to pretend he was the big bad wolf.
March 11, 2019
In this book, you pretend to be the wolf to blow the house down. The text is sparse enough that you could use it for Toddles Tales as more of an introduction to the story, or you could include it with other retellings for the preschoolers and I'm sure they'd still love it.
May 3, 2020
I thought this book would be great for a preschool class. The reader is tasked to act out the big bad wolf while the class is able to pretend to be the three little pigs getting their houses blown down. This would be a fun new way to bring story into the class in an interactive way!
December 17, 2020
That was an interesting play on the traditional three little pigs story. They still build their houses, there is still huffing and puffing, but the ending is happier. The illustrations are simple and work really well with the story.
#Wintergames #teamreadnosereindeer +16
#Wintergames #teamreadnosereindeer +16
December 26, 2025
Adorable retelling of the 3 Little Pigs story with possibilities for interacting with the book as the wolf himself! Simple illustrations will help my visually impaired students. Simple text opposite the illustrations makes for a lovely story for my youngest students in my school!
October 3, 2017
Retelling of the three lil pigs
March 26, 2018
cute, surprise ending
September 5, 2018
This is a funny twist on the story of the Three Little Pigs - with a funny surprise ending.
November 5, 2018
Connections: The Three Little Pigs
November 30, 2018
Interactive version of Three Little Pigs... the reader gets to huff and puff! My first grade students loved it!
January 19, 2019
Very cute easy read
February 15, 2019
I loved this book! Very interactive and adorable! Great illustrations, too.
May 25, 2019
Funny and interactive!
September 9, 2019
A very simple retelling of The Three Little Pigs that was perfect for Toddler Storytime! The kids loved huffing and puffing with the wolf.
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November 6, 2019Interactive book that encourages children to blow the houses down of the pigs. Good for KS1. Simple language!
June 18, 2020
A basic read with a super cute ending! We are big little pigs fans...and this was a hit.
July 7, 2020
just a little too simple
January 2, 2021
Retelling of the Three Little Pigs.
August 13, 2022
This book as a library book in the current era is sort of gross. Interactive elements requires blowing through a hole in the page. Fun for a gift, not great for a library.
September 10, 2022
Perfect easy reader for students at GRL C-D.
January 7, 2023
An interactive picture book. E. loved blowing the houses down.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews