Piggybook

Title: Piggybook
Author: Anthony Browne
Fantasy

     Piggybook is about a normal family consisting of the mother, father, and two sons.  The males of the family seem to feel that they hold the most important roles in the house, and so they order the mother around to make them food and keep the house clean, on top of her work as well.  They get away with this for a while until one day the mother is not there when they return home for the evening.  This sends the father and two boys into panic mode as they do not know how to take care of themselves.  They spend hours making terrible food and put off cleaning themselves, their clothes, and the house until it is a pigsty. At this point the illustrations no longer show these characters as humans but as dirty pigs dressed in people clothes and unhappily working in a messy house.  When the mother returns the males are extremely grateful and start to help out more around the house.  This way everyone is happy.
     My favorite part about this book is the illustrations and hidden clues in the background.  Pigs seem to pop up here and there and continue to increase until the men themselves are pigs.  I enjoyed, and I am sure young kids will also enjoy looking for the hidden pigs in the background of paintings, wallpaper, food containers, newspapers, and so on.  I also think that a wide variety of different people, especially Americans, can relate to the family aspects of the story.  Children will also enjoy the fantasy element of transformation from human to animals according to their actions.  On the other hand, this was not my favorite book, and I am not sure I would use it in a classroom to share with other students.