The Three Silly Girls Grubb

The Three Silly Girls Grubb

Written and illustrated by: John and Ann Hassett

Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002

32 pages

Fractured Fairytale

     The Three Silly Girls Grubb is a new twist on the old classic folktale The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I previously selected The Three Billy Goats Gruff as my traditional literature book, so I thought it would be a great idea to choose a fractured fairytale based off the same story. This modern version begins with three silly sisters named Grubb. One day, the three girls miss the bus and have to cross a bridge to get to school. Under the bridge lives Ugly-Boy Bobby. One by one, the three Grubbs skip over the bridge. Ugly-Boy Bobby stops each sister and demands her lunch. Do they get toads stuffed in their sneakers? Do they get bats in their hair? Or by some miracle, do they get to keep their lunches? Read this story to find out!

     The illustrations in The Three Silly Girls Grubb are just as silly and fun as the words. The cartoon drawings and the round faces of the characters are especially good for expressing emotions. The picture details show additional traits of the characters that the words in the story cannot and do not portray. Ugly-Boy Bobby is an unruly bully all the way down to his untied shoe strings! Ugly- Boy Bobby's transformation at the end of the story is only made complete by the illustrations. The Hassett's have a fine tuned attention for detail in the images of this book.

     The Three Silly Girls Grubb would be appropriate for PreK-3^rd grade audiences. This modern twist on an old tale has received the Virginia Young Readers Primary Book Award. In a social studies lesson, this book might be a great way to introduce transportation. The three girls in the story miss the school bus in the morning and find themselves in trouble. How did you get to school this morning? What procedures should you take if riding the bus? This can lead to lessons about bus and pedestrian safety. Math concepts such as big, bigger, biggest can easily be explored using the Grubb sisters as examples. Math vocabulary can also be taught when reading The Three Silly Girls Grubb. How many jelly donuts does the biggest Grubb sister have if she has a dozen? A half dozen? In science, the students might create the setting (bridge) using marshmallows, toothpicks, and popsicle sticks as I mentioned for The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I also love the idea of reading both of these stories as a class and comparing and contrasting them using a Venn diagram.