The Three Little Pigs!

I was travelling to Bundanoon with my hubby for the Easter break. While he was driving, I was thinking about how lucky I was to have a week off work, but somehow I found my mind was back at work organising the next Family Story time at Penshurst Library.

The theme is “Pigs” and the first thing that popped into my head was the famous fairy tale of “The Three Little Pigs”. I started to think about the mother of The Three Little Pigs. What was it like for her to have her 3 boys leave home all on the one day? Was she overjoyed, thinking about how much more food she will have in the house, or was she sad to see them all leave?

Over a year ago, 3 of my 4 children left home in 3 months! I thought that was hard. I don’t know how Mrs Piggy coped having her “babies” all leave on the one day! I cried every time one of my kids left home. Of course I was happy they were spreading their wings and making a new life of their own, but my heart had to let go of my kids. One of my kids moved into a wooden house and 2 into a brick house. At least one didn’t move into a house built of straw!!

I also wondered; did Mrs Piggy have any other little piglets at home? 1, 2, 3, or maybe none. I have one of my children left at home and I love her being at home, but I know it is hard for her to be the only one left. Oh, and what about Mr Piggy? How was he feeling about his 3 sons moving out?

On top of all these thoughts, my mind wandered back to a trip my family had a couple of years ago to Tanna, Vanuatu. Tanna was the island that recently copped a direct hit from a category 5 cyclone “Pam”. We spent 2 weeks at a school in Tanna. My job at the school was to help in the library. I decided to do a theme on fairy tales. I was telling them the story of The Three Little Pigs. They hadn’t heard it before. By the time I as half way through the story I was feeling that this probably wasn’t the best fairy tale to read to them. I was up to the part where the little pig made his house out of straw and the big bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew his house down. I realised while telling this story that pretty much all of the houses on Tanna are made out of straw or sticks!!

In the recent cyclone so many of the houses in the villages were flattened!! Thankfully the school buildings remained intact and sheltered the villagers from a storm none of them had experienced in their life time. The buildings are still sheltering the villagers until they rebuild their homes. So I guess The Three Little Pigs really does teach us some life lessons.

Anyway, if you have kids, come along to Penshurst Library’s family story time and we will retell the story of “The Three Little Pigs”, play piggy games, and have lots of piggy fun!

Date: Wednesday 13 May 2015
Time: 6.00pm - 7.00pm
Cost: Free
Venue: Penshurst Branch Library
630 Forest Road, Penshurst NSW 2222

Click here to book online to attend this storytime session.

- Jacqui.