The Three Billy Goats Gruff - Hardcover

Stephen Carpenter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0694010332 ISBN 13: 9780694010332

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

Synopsis

This classic story is a favorite with toddlers, who will cheer on the three clever billy goats who outsmart a mean troll. With plenty of repetition, this adventure is perfect for reading aloud and for joining in, and a satisfying ending provides a reassuring touch.

About this title

About the Authors

public domain in law, legal availability for public use, free of charge, of materials, processes, devices, skills, and plans that are not protected by copyright or patent, including those on which copyright or patent has lapsed.
source: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2001-05 Columbia University Press.

Stephen Carpenter has illustrated many books, including Olive You!, Jingle Jokes, The Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel Board Book and the picture book The Three Billy Goats Gruff. He lives with his wife and son in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.

Reviews

PreSchool-Grade 1AA familiar tale, simply told. The straightforward style and repetition of phrases in the text are so accessible that very young listeners will soon be chanting along. Carpenter's cheery billy goats and their country setting look a little bit like the frolicking sheep and rolling hills featured in Jez Alborough's The Grass Is Always Greener (Dial, 1987; o.p.) while the troll is appropriately ugly but not too scary. The colorful cartoons mirror the story's action rather than extend or comment on it. This title won't replace Glen Round's appealingly scruffy and slightly scarier version (Holiday, 1993) nor is it a match for Janet Stevens's more elaborate and amusingly updated retelling (Harcourt, 1990). It will come in handy, however, as an additional copy of a perennially popular folktale. (One minor quibble about the format: the final double-page spread occurs on the endpages, which may affect some library's processing routines.)ALisa Dennis, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this entry in the Growing Tree series, the publisher copyrights the text, while Carpenter provides illustrations for the story; here, the three billy goats named Gruff play on a nasty troll's greed to get where the grass is greenest. Logic has never been the long suit of this tale: Instead of letting the two smaller billy goats be terrorized by the mean and ugly troll, children wonder, why doesn't the biggest billy goat step in sooner? It's still a good introduction to comparatives, and the repetitiveness of the story invites participation. The artwork matches the story: The characters are suitably menacing, quivering, or stalwart, and the perspectives allow readers to be right there in the thick of the action. (Picture book. 2-4) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 2^-4. In the new Harper Growing Tree series for babies and toddlers, this simple retelling of a deliciously scary old trickster tale is just right for toddlers to hear while safe and sound in the storyteller's lap. There's lots of repetition for joining in and chanting together ("TRIP, TRAP! TRIP, TRAP! went the bridge"), and Carpenter's double-page-spread pictures capture the tense stand-off between each of the eager, wide-eyed billy goats and the mean, ugly, hungry, green troll who won't let them cross ("Who's that tripping over my bridge?"). Suspense builds to the satisfying reversal, and in the final pictures, the bully ends up splashing in the water while the billy goats grow fat in pastoral bliss. Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0694010332
• ISBN 13: 9780694010332
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 24