The Three Billy Goats Gruff | CM: Canadian Review of Materials

Volume XXIX / Issue 23 - February 17 / 2023

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Author:

Mac Barnett

Illustrated by:

Jon Klassen

New York, NY: Orchard Books/Scholastic (Published in Canada by Scholastic Canada), 2022

48 pp., hardcover, $24.99

ISBN:

9781338673845

Grades:

Preschool-grade 3

Ages:

Ages 4-8

Review by:

Tamara Opar

Excerpt:

Once upon a time, there was a bridge.
And beneath that bridge, there lived a troll.
The troll would sit in the mud and the rubble and the trash,
listening,
waiting,
hoping for someone to cross the bridge above his head.
“I am a troll. I live to eat.
I love the sound of hooves and feet and paws and claws on cobblestones.
For that’s the sound of meat and bones!”
The troll used a filthy fingernail to scrape the wax out of his ears.
All he’d eaten lately was a leather boot and some goop he’d found in his belly button.
He was practically starving.

Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s creative partnership shines in this lighthearted retelling of the generations old story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Children will be delighted to learn about how three clever goats outsmart the hungry troll who lives under the bridge.

They will giggle over how gross the troll is as he picks at a scab and snacks on belly button goop. He thinks himself very shrewd for tricking the goats (not) and confidently boasts, “I’m so smart! And fun and handsome”. This story is truly about the troll who spends quite a bit of time daydreaming about a tasty goat smorgasbord, listing such delicacies as “rump of goat in honey glaze to goat benedict with hollandaise”. Children will find his character to be humorous and, therefore, less scary than he has been portrayed in the past. And his greed only gets him an empty belly and a long swim over three waterfalls

This is a truly enjoyable telling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The text rhymes and is lively and funny which makes it a great read-aloud for kids. Jon Klassen’s lovely artwork was compiled digitally using inks, watercolours and graphite. His illustrations are created in warm earth tones and enhance the story with humour.

Highly Recommended

Reviewer:

Tamara Opar is Youth Services Head Librarian, Children and Teen Services at the Millennium Branch of Winnipeg Public Library.