"Wait! No Paint!" by Bruce Whatley

Reviewed in Horn Book Magazine Sept/Oct 2001. Vol 77 Issue 5


This story begins as the 3 little pigs story, but quickly becomes something else as the linear stucture of the story is diverted by the appearance of something from "outside" the book, initially a glass of juice drawn onto the illustration and a mysterious "Voice" which turns out to be the Illustrator who then becomes part of the story in conversation with the pigs. The illustrator holds all the power in the story. One of the pigs is reading "Hamlet", an implied literary experience. I guess you could call the narration "pseudo" as it often falls into documentary where the pigs argue with the illustrator about what colour to paint them in the absence of red paint. The paint tube and the paintbrushes are painted into the story, so the book becomes the story. The wordplay is terrific, , mixing colour with visual and textual imagery. The ending is hilarious, in the absence of red paint the illustrator changes the pigs into bears, and the wolf into Goldilocks. The young reader would be engaged because of its comedic nature, in fact its mocking tone, of the original story and its natural conclusion, which is turned on its head in this postmodern tale.