Sonderbooks Book Review of

by Margaret McNamara

illustrated by Mark Fearing

There's a nice tradition of three little pigs take-offs in picture books. My favorite is still The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, by Eugene Trivizias and Helen Oxenbury, but another fabulous choice is The Three Pigs, by David Wiesner, which won the Caldecott Medal. At our library, a recent summer reading favorite was The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark, by Ken Geist and Julia Gorton, and this book is in that vein.

The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot is simply fun. From the beginning, it makes me want to read it aloud:

Mama sends them off into the universe to find a planet of their own (but urges them to call every once in awhile), but she warns them to beware of the Big Bad Robot.

Where this book will especially please young outer space buffs is when the little aliens go looking for a home. They pass all the planets in our solar system. The artist uses coloration from NASA photographs, and though the Author's Note at the end does make no claims that this is a science book, they did try to portray the planets as accurately as possible.

Now, never mind that they are going at the speed of light, yet the Big Bad Robot keeps gaining on them. Never mind that the sizes of the aliens and planets are all out of proportion. This is a fun story with cute aliens, and a nice message: Always stick together.

And it's fun to read aloud! Here's the part where the little aliens are together, being confronted by the Big Bad Robot: