The Four Little Pigs Review

The Four Little Pigs is a really fun and creative interactive iPad app which brings a new twist to the classic tale of The Three Little Pigs. Tap the "play" triangle at the bottom of each page to hear the text narrated, or skip this and read this story to oneself. Auto page turn is also an option, and it is nice that these words are highlighted when read. Do tap around these pages looking for interesting interactions as well, also and enjoy the extras included in this application.

Here, the main character, a boy named Tom, enjoys visiting his grandmother, a witch who appreciates a good book. Tom snubs her offer to read him The Three Little Pigs one night, complaining that he already knows this story and that reading is boring, much to the disappointment of his grandma, a woman who owns many books but no TV.

Using her magic, she transforms Tom into a character within The Three Little Pigs, becoming the fourth pig. Knowing this tale well, it is a lot of fun to watch Tom protect these pigs in very clever ways from the wolf interested in huffing and puffing his way into their homes and eating them, such as blowing pepper out of a window, making the wolf sneeze so much that he can’t attempt to blow the house down. I like the ending as well because although Tom may not always be able to outsmart the wolf, he can protect his friends in way they never thought of in this very nice modern take on the classic story.

I also like that this ebook references the original telling of this tale where the first pigs do not survive the wolf, as Tom understands that all does not end well for the first two pigs and helps them out a lot, instead of having them just run to the house made of bricks.

The illustrations used here are wonderful, and I especially like the images of Tom as the fourth pig, looking like a half- boy/ half-pig creature - great fun. The interactions are also very nice here, sometimes subtle and always well-placed, great to foster the reader's own imagination while enjoying this book. There is a very nice moment when Tom is magically brought into the book and then acquires his new pig snout - very nice moments. I also appreciate another modern touch of the wolf actively referencing the book “How To Be a Fairy Wolf,” giving him some hints on how best to foil the four little pigs, to no avail, of course.

The loving grandmother witch is a great character who I was happy to introduce to my son. Being fully emerged into classic fairy tales, my son knows the mythology of witches who eat children and do other terrible things, but not much about good witches, which is kind of a shame. I really enjoy this character, especially the details of her love of books over TV and her taking care of Tom in a way that is tender and relatable to my son as well as being very interesting with her special witch powers and how she uses them.

This app contains some nice extras as well, as both the Connect the Dot and Puzzles sections, each includes 10 images based on this app to complete, either dot by dot or as traditional jigsaw puzzles, and I especially like the faint outline used as a guide to solve these jigsaws, a nice touch.

Please note that this app is based on a book by the same name written by author Kimara Nye, a title worth looking into for fans of this very nice and creative storybook app.