I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow down your shoddily constructed...

Shoo-fly publishing's The Three Little Cowboy Builders is circulating the blogosphere as the latest casualty of eager political correctness. The digital pop-up book based on the classic story, The Three Little Pigs, was not shortlisted for the first annual (British government-backed) BETT Awards because, according to the panel of educator-judges, "the use of pigs raises cultural issues."

Today's BBC News report elaborated on the panel's judgment. Apparently, the use of pigs in the story was considered potentially offensive to Muslims. And Asians. And, well, construction workers:

The judges criticised the stereotyping in the story of the unfortunate pigs: "Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?"

(Examples of judges' comments must have been released by someone associated with the book, because they are not reflected at all in this vague public statement, which essentially says that the book just wasn't good enough.)

Looking for some kind of response from any of the potentially offended communities, I found this Daily Mail article from March 2007, about a church school that renamed their Three Pigs musical "The Three Little Puppies." It includes a statement from Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra of the Muslim Council of Britain who said, "The vast majority of Muslims have no problem whatsoever with the Three Little Pigs. There's an issue about the eating of pork, which is forbidden, but there is no prohibition about reading stories about pigs."

No comment so far from the builders. Bob?


For the oft-maligned wolf's perspective, you can also check out children's laureate Jon Scieszka's The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!


Article by : Heidi From www.Omnivoracious.com