The Three Witty Goats Gruff – book reviews

Posted on January 26, 2019 by Lora

Using your MIND over your MIGHT: Take-a-ways and a book review by Lian Wright at Reese Speaks. Click on image above to read.

Using your MIND over your MIGHT: A book review by Barbara Fanson at Readers’ Favorite. Click on image below to read.

I would love to hear your thoughts on my take of the classic Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Lora

New Picture Book by Lora Rozler

Posted on September 14, 2018 by Lora

NEWLY RELEASED

Three hungry goats need to cross a bridge to get to a luscious field of green grass. But a greedy old troll stands in their way and threatens to devour anything that sets foot on its path. So how can the goats safely cross the bridge?

They must get clever, of course!

The Three Witty Goats Gruff preserves the fun and charm of the beloved original, Three Billy Goats Gruff, while adding a new spin to this cautionary tale. With plenty of repetition and exciting dialogue, young readers are sure to join in on the adventure. Perfect for shared reading at home or in the classroom.

Published by Words Publishing
Publication Date September 9, 2018
Available in all Major Retailers including:
Chapters-Indigo | Amazon | Barnes and Noble

The original tale of Three Billy Goats Gruff came to us from Norway where it was first published by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Engebretsen Moe in the early 1840’s. Prior to television and radio, oral storytelling was the most effective way to entertain people. Asbjornsen and Moe’s collection of folk tales brought many of these stories into a written form still shared today.

Three Billy Goats Gruff is a tale about three famished billy goats (male goats) who desperately want to get to a fresh field of grass that grows
on the other side of a bridge. In most incarnations of the story, the three goats are brothers – youngest to eldest. In others, they are youngster, father and grandfather (Gruff is used as their family name).

As the story goes, under the bridge lives a greedy troll that threatens to eat anything that dares cross it. The first and second billy goats manage to outwit the troll and cross the bridge by convincing him to wait for their bigger brother, a classic eat-me-when-I’m-fatter folk tale plotline. The eldest goat eventually knocks the wicked troll off the bridge with his mighty horns. The troll gets carried away by the stream and alas, the goats live happily ever after.

Since its initial publication, there have been many different versions of this folk tale. When people retell a story, they sometimes make changes to bring it up to date or make it their own. In my adaptation I incorporated a female goat (nanny). Although female goats have been used in previous editions of this tale, they have seldom, if ever, been featured as the heroine in the story. As well, I proposed an alternative way for the goats to solve their dilemma – instead of using force to subdue their bully, they use their wit to outmaneuver the greedy old troll.

From an educational perspective, my book strives to enrich young readers in the area of literacy (vocabulary-building) and mathematics (concepts of patterning, number sense and measurement), as well as encourages discussions about various themes, including overcoming obstacles, problem-solving, teamwork, unity, courage, greed and bullying.

I hope you enjoy reading The Three Witty Goats Gruff as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Feel free to share your comments and thoughts below.

Three Witty Goats Gruff

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Lora

Hello everyone. I hope you had a restful March break and are excited about the week ahead. I’d like to share a poem I wrote a little while back titled, Three Witty Goats Gruff. It is based on a variation of the original story, Three Billy Goats Gruff. I plan to revisit it with my students this week as we continue our exploration around the concept of Measurement and Size.

After reading several versions of the original story to my students, I plan to introduce my version of it via a poem. When I first introduced it (last year), students really enjoyed the chant and patterns, while I loved the teachable moments that stemmed from it.

MATH – counting backwards, detecting patterns, reinforcing concepts of measurement and size, subtraction, etc.

LITERACY – introducing new vocabulary, making predictions, using context clues to make inferences, singular/plural pronouns, synonyms, etc.

Three Witty Goats Gruff by Words On A Limb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

One of my students favourite follow-up activities was to re-enact the poem using stick puppets. It is a wonderful way for them to practise retelling the story and have fun while doing so. Some benefits of using stick puppets to teach literacy include strengthening oral vocabulary, acting in role, building comprehension, retelling a story in sequence, and recalling details.

Here are some cross-curricular extension activities, including: 1. Three Billy Goats Gruff Maze – students help the Billy Goats navigate through a maze to get to a field of fresh grass (good for refining fine motor, spatial and problem-solving skills); 2. Writing Template – students reflect on their favourite part of the story (while practising important writing skills); 3. Fill In The Blanks – students use a word bank to fill in the missing words from the poem (great for memory skills and practising high-frequency words); 4. Making Patterns Math Worksheet – students complete and create their own pattern using characters from the story (aids with visual discrimination and patterning concepts).

To download a copy of my poem, Three Witty Goats Gruff, including the Stick Puppet Templates, for your personal use in the classroom, along with the cross-curricular activities hown above, click on Billy Goat.