Blog #19 The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Yummy: The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Newly Illustrated by Lucy Cousins
Candlewick Press
2009
pages 23-31

Traditional Literature

I chose this book because as I flipped through the pages I like the illustrator’s interpretative style of the traditional literature she was depicting. This particular story is one of eight in the collection of traditional stories illustrated by Lucy Cousins. In this story, three goats are crossing a bridged that is guarded by a troll. When the first goat crosses, the troll says he is going to eat him. The little goat says to wait and that there is a bigger goat than him about to cross the bridge. The medium goat says the same thing when he crosses the bridge. When the largest goat crosses the bride, he stands up to the troll and wins.

          The illustrations in this book are rendered in gouache. The outlines of the characters are thick and black and the colors are mainly blocked and one dimensional. This gives a child-like quality to the illustrations. There is a considerable amount of negative space used throughout. In using the negative space, the illustrator is able to draw attention to the focus of the tales the illustrations are depicting. The style of this book is very informal because some words seem to have been painted across the page and interact with the illustrations.

          As traditional literature usually is, this would be great to use for a character education lesson, in particular on bullying. This story shows that standing up to bullying is the right thing to do and allows for everyone to enjoy themselves freely. I think an excellent way to incorporate this book in the classroom would be to have students illustrate a copy of the tale. Because the style of illustration used in this book is simplistic, it would not intimidate students.

To visit the website for Lucy Cousins most popular book series, the Maisy books, click on her name.