Never Disturb The Angry Troll

The Three Billy Goats Fluff

Written by Rachel Mortimer

Illustrated by Liz Pichon

Originally published in Great Britain by Hodder Children’s Books 2010

Also published by Scholastic

32 pages

Fractured Fairy Tale

While talking to a friend one day about different genres of literature she pointed me towards this particular book for a fractured fairytale. I instantly fell in love with it just by looking at the cover. You can tell that this book is full of surprises and I love a good book that keeps me wondering what will happen next. The Three Billy Goats Fluff is about three little goats that are fluffy, but you’ll never guess what their coat is used for and how it gets so fluffy. Close to where the billy goats graze there is an angry troll that can’t seem to get any sleep. He gets very angry at the little goats but momma goat always has a plan. Momma goat knows how it feels when you don’t get any sleep so she comes up with an idea to sooth the troll. She makes the troll a gift and leaves it for him by his house. The troll is overly joyed at the gift she gives and he uses it right away to catch up on some sleep. Now that the troll is happy the little goats can freely run around happy and free. 

The illustrations in this story are sure to catch any child’s eye. They are very colorful and intriguing.  It looks like Liz Pichon uses different types of painting in her illustrations. She adds texture to her pictures and it makes the animals in the story really come to life. The way Pichon uses lines shows action and movement from the characters that you could notice even without reading the words to the story.

The story, The Three Billy Goats Fluff is a great story for young readers. The interest level would suit pre-k through first grade but the book is on a third grade reading level. This story is sure to keep their attention simply because of the suspense and the interesting illustrations. You could use this story to explore descriptive words. There are many descriptive words such as fluffy, lush, etc. You could have the students find objects around the classroom or at home that could be described using those words. Another activity you could do with book could correlate with rhyming. When teaching students about rhyming you could point out the rhyming words used in the story and have them think of other words that could rhyme with them as well. In the story momma goat wrote a letter to the troll. You could teach the students about friendly letters and how to write them. The students could then write their own friendly letter to one of the characters in the story.