Arts & Culture

Little Voices, Big Ideas: The True Story Of The Three Little Pigs

WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Helen Taylor

Published December 9, 2020 at 3:00 PM CST

This retelling of "The Three Little Pigs" give The Big Bad Wolf a chance to share his own version of the traditional story.

The big bad wolf shows up in many forms in children’s stories--even disguised as grandma--with the intention of teaching children to be wary of the bad guys out there. But is the big bad wolf really all that big and bad, or has he just been given a bad rap? And when we paint the bad guy with so broad a stroke, might we fostering binary thinking?

In Episode 3 of “Little Voices, Big Ideas,” we hear from the big bad wolf, himself, in John Scieszka’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and offer strategies for encouraging kids to think critically before jumping to conclusions.

Abram and Simone Himelstein join the podcast to share their insights into this traditional character and untraditional story.

This podcast is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a partnership project of PRIME TIME Family Reading, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, WWNO New Orleans, and WRKF Baton Rouge.

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Sarah Debacher

Sarah DeBacher is the Director of Curriculum and Content Development for PRIME TIME Family Reading at the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Originally from Atlanta, she has lived in New Orleans for 23 years, where she has taught English and writing at the University of New Orleans, Tulane University, and the Bard Early College program. Her publications include “Making it Up as We Go: Students Writing and Teachers Reflecting on Post-K New Orleans” (Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service Learning and Community Literacy, 2008), “First, Do No Harm: Teaching Writing in the Wake of Traumatic Events” (Composition Forum, 2016), and several essays on living in New Orleans. She is mother to two young sons, three chickens, two cats, and a rescue dog.

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Freddi Evans

Freddi Williams Evans is the author of three historical and award-winning picture books: Hush Harbor: Praying in Secret (Carolrhoda, 2008), The Battle of New Orleans, the Drummer’s Story (Pelican Publishers, 2005), and, A Bus of Our Own (Albert Whitman, 2001). She is also internationally recognized for her scholarship on Congo Square, a historical landmark of African American culture in New Orleans. Along with over a dozen published essays and countless presentations, her books on the subject are Come Sunday, A Young Reader’s History of Congo Square (ULL Press, 2017), and Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans (ULL Press, 2011), which received the 2012 Louisiana Humanities Book of the Year award and has been published in French.

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Little Voices, Big Ideas: The True Story Of The Three Little Pigs

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