As he did in The Ugly Truckling, Gordon retells a classic: he casts three rigs as the three pigs and, as the foe, a ""big, bad wrecking ball"" intent on destroying their garages. The tone and art are unnecessarily menacing: the wrecking ball is a snarling jack-o'-lantern look-alike and his friends ""the mean magnet"" and ""the cruel cutter"" aren't any nicer. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Gr 1-3-Three little rigs are sent off by their mama to build their own individual garages. The blue one builds his out of wood, the yellow one uses bricks, and the red one makes his out of steel. The evil wrecking ball comes and smashes the first two. The final rig, along with his brothers, enlists the help of the cranes and sends the wrecking ball, the mean magnet, and the cruel cutter to their fiery deaths in the melting pot. This fractured tale is not for the faint of heart. The wrecking ball itself has a scary, monsterlike face. The pages with the rigs are, by contrast, light and shiny. The accomplished artwork adds great drama to the story. Kids who love trucks will enjoy this adaptation, and fans of David Gordon's The Ugly Truckling (HarperCollins, 2004) are also a likely audience.-Linda M. Kenton, San Rafael Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

PreS-Gr. 2. NASCAR dads and little grease monkeys rejoice. As in The Ugly Truckling 0 BKL Je 1 & 15 04, 0 Gordon has changed the oil on another familiar folktale. In this vehicular version of "The Three Little Pigs," the offspring of big-rig parents must roll forth into the wide industrial wasteland to "build their own garages." But if the "big, bad wrecking ball" has anything to say about it, their shelters won't remain standing for long. The illustrations clearly show Gordon's background as an animation concept artist, with headlights, bumpers, and rivets smoothly coalescing into expressive facial features. However, even with the rigs' shiny primary colors providing rays of cheer, the sooty, factory-block surroundings do little to counteract the tale's inherent violence--brought to a particularly harsh extreme in the final image of the wrecking ball's demise. But the familiar story line, turbocharged with things on wheels and helpful machinery (Gordon's anthropomorphic transformations extend to air compressors and pneumatic drills), will mesmerize tool-and-vehicle-obsessed little ones. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2005 Booklist

Mama rig sends the three little rigs out into the world to build their own garages. Sound slightly familiar? "Little rig, little rig, let me come in!" says the big bad wrecking ball, to which the little rig replies, "Not by the chrome on my chinny chin, chin." His garage is then smashed to smithereens. A similar fate meets the second little rig's shelter. The third rig, however, builds his garage of steel. When the wrecking ball shows up with the mean magnet and the cruel cutter, together the three little rigs enlist the help of three big cranes. Kids keen on tools will enjoy the array of building machines such as a loader, air compressor, nail gun and welder. In this companion to The Ugly Truckling (2004), Gordon uses the familiar fairy tale as a framework to extol the virtues of teamwork. The scary-looking wrecking ball and his cronies meet a nasty end, making this a story for a slightly older reader. Illustrated in colors ranging from creamy taffies to shades of metallic gray, the art is a young industrialist's dream come true. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.