Wait! No Paint!

by Bruce Whatley, Bruce Whatley (Illustrator)

Overview

The three little pigs go off to build their separate houses one out of straw, one out of sticks, and one out of bricks.

But wait! Who just spilled juice on the first little pig's house? Why are the pigs turning green? And what is that mysterious Voice the pigs keep hearing?

Ages 4 - 8

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780064435468
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/14/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,151,652
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.00(d)
Lexile:	AD550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Bruce Whatley  is one of Australia's most highly regarded and talented authors and illustrators for children, both here and internationally. Bruce started his working life in advertising as an art director and illustrator and since then he has created over 60 picture books.  Many of his books have won awards both in Australia and overseas, including The Ugliest Dog in the World, Looking for Crabs, Tails from Grandad’s Attic and Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase. 

Bruce has co-written a number of award-winning books with his wife Rosie Smith (Whatley’s Quest, Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase and Little White Dogs Can’t Jump) and his son Ben Smith Whatley (Zoobots).

In 2002 Bruce paired with author Jackie French and illustrated Diary of a Wombat – an iconic picture book that has become an international best-seller with foreign sales to nine territories.  Diary of Wombat was the start of an extraordinary artistic collaboration that sparked the publication of Pete the Sheep, Josephine Wants to Dance, Shaggy Gully Times, Baby Wombat’s Week, Christmas Wombat and Wombat Goes to School. Plus two delightful books about Queen Victoria, being Queen Victoria’s Underpants and Queen Victoria’s Christmas.

 One of the most remarkable aspects of Bruce’s talent is the breadth of his artistic ability, which includes an appealing cartoon style to realistic representations using mediums ranging from coloured pencils, watercolour, acrylic and oils, and more recently, 3D digital software. 

And accompanying that talent is an intellectual depth and curiosity that sees Bruce taking on large and complex projects, such as The Beach They Called Gallipoli, which is being co-created with Jackie French and will be published in 2014 to coincide with the centenary of WW1.

In 2008 Bruce completed his PhD titled Left Hand Right Hand: implications of ambidextrous image making. In his thesis Bruce looked at the image making of the non-dominant hand, making the fascinating discovery that in most people the ability to draw lies in the use of the ‘other’ hand.

Bruce Whatley  is one of Australia's most highly regarded and talented authors and illustrators for children, both here and internationally. Bruce started his working life in advertising as an art director and illustrator and since then he has created over 60 picture books.  Many of his books have won awards both in Australia and overseas, including The Ugliest Dog in the World, Looking for Crabs, Tails from Grandad’s Attic and Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase. 

Bruce has co-written a number of award-winning books with his wife Rosie Smith (Whatley’s Quest, Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase and Little White Dogs Can’t Jump) and his son Ben Smith Whatley (Zoobots).

In 2002 Bruce paired with author Jackie French and illustrated Diary of a Wombat – an iconic picture book that has become an international best-seller with foreign sales to nine territories.  Diary of Wombat was the start of an extraordinary artistic collaboration that sparked the publication of Pete the Sheep, Josephine Wants to Dance, Shaggy Gully Times, Baby Wombat’s Week, Christmas Wombat and Wombat Goes to School. Plus two delightful books about Queen Victoria, being Queen Victoria’s Underpants and Queen Victoria’s Christmas.

 One of the most remarkable aspects of Bruce’s talent is the breadth of his artistic ability, which includes an appealing cartoon style to realistic representations using mediums ranging from coloured pencils, watercolour, acrylic and oils, and more recently, 3D digital software. 

And accompanying that talent is an intellectual depth and curiosity that sees Bruce taking on large and complex projects, such as The Beach They Called Gallipoli, which is being co-created with Jackie French and will be published in 2014 to coincide with the centenary of WW1.

In 2008 Bruce completed his PhD titled Left Hand Right Hand: implications of ambidextrous image making. In his thesis Bruce looked at the image making of the non-dominant hand, making the fascinating discovery that in most people the ability to draw lies in the use of the ‘other’ hand.

Editorial Reviews

A quirky retelling of a perennial favorite.” — ALA Booklist

“Whatley allows children to explore [the original fairy tale] on one level while enjoying a fractured fairy tale on another.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This book will be of great help in starting discussions on what an illustrator does. The pigs’ expressions are priceless.” — School Library Journal

"This hilarious takeoff is a natural story-hour choice." — Horn Book

From the Publisher

A quirky retelling of a perennial favorite.

ALA Booklist

"This hilarious takeoff is a natural story-hour choice."

Horn Book

The Three Little Pigs take on a new enemy in this hilarious story. The disaster begins when the pigs notice orange juice all over their house -- where did it come from? They soon find out that the illustrator of the book has plans of his own...

bn.com

PreS-Gr 3-Although familiar elements from "The Three Pigs" are included here, several threads are new. A cup of juice spills on the first pig's straw house, causing it to collapse before the wolf blows on it, and the wolf's nose is erased and redone after he slams into the door of the second pig. It turns out that the force behind these events is the Voice, which belongs to the illustrator. He has run out of red paint and so the pigs are white. After making them green, patterned, and polka-dotted, and realizing that with no red paint there can be no fire to boil the wolf, the four characters are given a whole new identity. Children will laugh at the last picture in which the characters are placed into the story of "Goldilocks." The book will be of great help in starting discussions on what an illustrator does. The pigs' expressions are priceless; their exasperation at being the wrong color comes through clearly. Whatley's accessible variation joins David Wiesner's unique vision and masterful technique in The Three Pigs (Clarion, 2001) and Barry Moser's humor in The Three Little Pigs (Little, Brown, 2001).-Debbie Stewart, Grand Rapids Public Library, MI Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Poor pigs! Not only do the Three Little Pigs have to contend with their old nemesis the Big Bad Wolf in the third visit this year, they also find themselves at the mercy of The Illustrator. The first inkling that all is not well comes when a mysterious Voice from nowhere spills juice all over the first little pig's straw house: a dismayed pig stares down at his house, which is partially obscured by an orange puddle and an overturned glass. The illustrator is an equal-opportunity meddler, giving the first and second little pigs time to escape to their brother's house by redrawing the wolf's nose. But the real problems start when the illustrator informs the pigs that they have all gone pale because he has run out of red paint—a squeezed-out tube of red paint appears on the corner of the page as corroborating evidence. The interplay between the infuriated and befuddled characters and the illustrator continues, with the pigs and the other elements of their story drawn as cartoons and the illustrator's paints and other artifacts appearing realistically on top of the plane of the page. This sort of self-conscious recognition of the artifice behind a picture book is nothing new; recent examples include Chris Van Allsburg's A Bad Day at Riverbend and Jackie French Koller's One Monkey Too Many—not to mention I Love Going Through this Book, by Robert Burleigh. By setting this concept within such a familiar tale heightens the artifice, Whatley (Captain Pajamas) allows children to explore it on one level while enjoying a fractured fairy tale on another. It's a sophisticated concept, though-use it with children who are beginning tounderstand what an illustrator is, and pair it with Janet Stevens's From Pictures to Words for a thorough treatment.

Kirkus Reviews