Goldilocks and the Three Hares

Title: Goldilocks and the Three Hares

Author: Heidi Petach

Illustrator: Heidi Petach

Publisher & Publication Date: Scholastic Inc., 1995

Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture book

Grade Level: K-2

Summary: In this story a pretty little girl with bouncy hair loses her ball in a hole in the ground. She goes down into the hole and discovers that a family lives there and has left some food out on the table. So she tries some of the food and then she tries to relax in their chairs, and ends up breaking the smallest one. Then she goes to the bedroom and tries to sleep in the beds, but ends up falling asleep in the smallest one. The family of three hares comes back to find everything out of place and then finds her in the bed. She wakes up and becomes friends with the hares. She fixes the seat she broke and says she will fix breakfast in the morning. There is also a little commentary from eight mice at the bottom of every page.

Response: This was a packed full of excitement picture book. There was the main story going on and then there was the story with the mice happening as well. I thought this was an interesting way to combine two stories. This book made me happy and I laughed a lot while reading it. I thought the mice were very amusing. It was similar to the original three bears story and Dusty Locks and the Three Bears. I was glad I selected to read this interesting story. The illustrations were mainly single-page spreads, but had a few double-page spreads. The images were probably produced using acrylic like many other simple picture books. The illustrations were pretty basic, but with a good amount of detail.

Teaching Ideas: This would be a wonderful book to perform. There are several characters for the students to select from (3 hares, Goldilocks, 8 mice, and many others!) and the book would be used as the guide for the script. You could work with the art and theater teachers to make this an awesome production. The students could design their own set and costumes and maybe even perform for a PTA meeting so their parents would see all their hard work in action!