Yo, Hungry Wolf! A Nursery Rap

1. Bibliography

Vozar, David. 1993. YO, HUNGRY WOLF! A NURSERY RAP. Ill. by Betsy Lewin. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0-440-40953-5

2. Summary

This is a re-telling of “The Three Little Pigs”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” in a rap verse style. In all three tales, the storyline is pretty traditional, with the exception of the rhyming and some of the grammar.

3. Critical Analysis

Vozar uses fun rhymes and catchy grammar to transform 3 traditional tales into a modern rap. The rap prose is catchy and would be a fun read-aloud. The text would also make a fun reader’s theater due to the style and the way it is broken into 4 line stanzas. When writing “The Three Little Pigs” section, Vozar uses the basic traditional tale with little variation. The most obvious variation is the use of a house of hay instead of a house of wood for the second pig. Some of the vocabulary in the story has been reworded; words such as “reinspired” and “beratin’” add to the story.

Betsy Lewin’s illustrations are done in watercolor and bold outlining. The cartoon style illustrations add to the characterizations and humor of the tales. The seemingly free draw pictures express the characters through the droop of the wolf’s whiskers and worry in the pigs’ eyes.

4. Awards and Review Excerpts

- AWARDS -

Children’s Choices Book, 1994 International Reading Association United States

- REVIEW EXCERPTS -

KIRKUS review: “Three well-known tales featuring the big bad wolf, retold in witty, rhythmic rap and cleverly linked.”

BOOKLIST review: “It's all good, nonviolent fun, much abetted by Lewin's marvelous cartoon-style illustrations.”

5. Connections

- Author study on David Vozar where students can compare and contrast other traditional tale raps such as MC Turtle and The Hip Hop Hare: A Nursery Rap and RAPunzel: A Happenin’ Rap.

- Read other books about The Three Little Pigs. Compare and contrast the storylines using a double bubble map.

- Have the students write an alternative ending to the Three Little Pigs.

- Have students create a dictionary of words they do not know in the rap. Have them create definitions based on text inferences, then look up the actual definition and compare the two.