IRL: PK-2nd

Genre
Fractured fairy tales and folklore
Picture books for children
Tone
Amusing
Illustration
Cartoony
Subject
Annoyance
Bridges
Goats
Noise
Trolls

2 copies

"The Three Billy Goats Fluff" really impressed me with its conflict resolution. The story begins with a troll that lives under a bridge and gets very agitated by the noise of the three billy goats' "trip-trapping" across his bridge. He has just moved there and was very unhappy with the lack of sleep he got; thus, he threatened to eat the goats if they didn't stop being loud. When they told their mother, who runs a knitting business, she came up with the solution of noise-less boots for the goats to where so they can cross the bridge silently. She related it back to her experience as a mother and understood where the troll is coming from. "Mother Goat listened to her Billy Goats and she thought about Mr. Troll. She knew what it was like to live withouit sleep; Little Billy Goat woke her up every night!" I like this a lot because it shows that kindness, empathy, and understanding can go a long way; there's no use in scheming against each other and getting vengeance. The illustrations are very cute and compliment the story nicely. It's definitely for younger readers (K-3rd), being that the language is very simple and each page only has a sentence or two. The story is told in 3rd person and the author is able to successfully redeem the troll by the end, which I think is a nice twist on a classic tale of a troll being completely unjustified and nasty. ( )

Author: Rachel Mortimer
Title: The Three Billy Goats Fluff
Illustrator: Liz Pichon
Publisher: Scholastic
Date: 2013
Pages: 32
Type: Picture Book
Summary: Three little Billy goats kept running over the bridge to go play and eat in the grass. As they walked over the bridge their hooves were so loud they kept waking the troll. The troll kept getting grumpy because he just wanted to sleep so he kept threatening the goats. Well since the mother was good at sewing things out of their wool. So the mother goat made them little boats to put over the hooves so they wouldn't make a sound. The troll was so happy, and mother goat also made them the troll a blanket and earmuffs. That night the troll had the greatest sleep ever.

I enjoyed this book, it was cute. It has bright beautiful illustrations. It was a cute short story and even had a couple rhymes here and there! I think younger children will especially love it.