Pig Books

Envy...the thing that makes us think that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Kids struggle with it as much as adults do. This was a great book that teaches kids that no matter who you are, you will have difficulties.

If Only I Were...., is a great story about a typical grey mouse, who is sick of getting chased around by a large cat. Of course, she wishes to be something else, first a great big cat, then other types of animals, once she becomes a human she really wants to be a mouse again. The story is fun and the pictures are very detailed-look around when you read this book, you'll see all the great fine points the vivid color illustrations bring out.

Every little dreamer who's wanted to be someone else will love this story. Little Missy finds out all too well how that wish is a futile mistake and actually creates more problems for her. I liked it because it touches the issue of self-esteem. It would be a valuable conversation starter for any parent or teacher.

Carl Sommer does an awesome job of teaching kids the value of self-acceptance through Missy the mouse. Missy's journeys throughout the zoo change her into different animal characters. Each time wishing she was a different animal that was stronger, faster, larger until her experiences leave her empty and wishing she was her old self. My 3 year old loved this book. As he struggles with having curly red hair and freckles, this book taught him it is o.k. to be who you are and that wishing you were someone else does not always make you happy. Our family was able to use this story as a spring board for discussions on being happy with who you are and what attributes you have been given. Definitely worthy for younger readers! I rate this an A+ and will definitely keep it handy for future discussions on this topic! Excellent!

... at a great price. My boys love the books and I love that they love them.

These are a great set of books. Each item the specific animal wants always leads to another item, sounds a lot like a child doesn't it? I love how the author has recreated the mind of a child acting out the story in the form of a moose, pig, or mouse. Any of the titles would be an exception gift.

If You Take A ... books are some of the best children's stories written. The whole series is great and this set is a great value! I highly recommend it for children age 3-6.

I bought this series for my nephew, who is 18 mos. old. He loves to be read to. There is enough detail in the pictures that there is plenty to point out. I can ask him "Where's the mouse" and he can look for it in the picture and point it out. And the artwork is cute. The stories are also cute and the sentences are simple enough that once my nephew does begin to read he'll be able to read these easily enough. A bit of subtle humor though, on one page the mouse writes words on the chalk board and one of them is versimilitude...just wait until my nephew want's to know what that word means!

Cute book - goes word for word with the story on the video we have at home.

My son loves this book. He likes to spend a lot of time on the page where Roly does his 'super-trick' and practices going through tubes and jumping using his toys. Its nicely drawn and just the right length for a bed-time story.

We borrowed this one from the library. My 3 year old loved it! One of his favourite parts is where Kipper builds an adventure contraption for Roly to climb on/slide down/etc. We had fun following each sequential picture to find out what Roly was going to go on next. Definitely a fun book.

If you are at all familiar with Kipper and his adventures, you will adore this book. My husband and I shared this book with our 2 and 1/2 year old, and it is one of her all time favorites.
Mr. Inkpen's soft, charming illustrations along with his witty and sweet style of story telling make this book so appealing, that you will be happy to read it "over and over" again to your child. Pick it up and fall in love.

Here's the outline: Kipper's friend Pig sends out a wish list for his birthday party, so Kipper visits a pet store to buy him the perfect gift. After carefully considering the many creatures in the shop, ("The stick insect... too much like a stick.") he finds a hamster and brings it home to give to Pig the next day. He names the hamster Roly, after dicovering the "tricks" he can do. Kipper adores Roly and wishes he didn't have to give him up the next day as a present to Pig. After he arrives at Pig's house, he discovers that Pig has received many pets as presents, so many in fact, that Pig, asks Kipper if he wouldn't mind "keeping Roly for him" - much to Kipper's delight.

that I am looking for her next book :)....what a great (yet) readable book !

When I opened 'Kiss the Sunset Pig' I was expecting a travel book, which it is ... and a great one at that. What I wasn't expecting was how much it would touch my soul. I sat, riveted, as I took a journey not only around the world, but across thoughts, hopes, dreams. Anyone who's ever questioned whether, with the whole world to choose from, they're living their lives in the best place or whether they've filled their lives to the very best of their ability, will find a resonating spirit in this book.
As Laurie Gough makes her way from Canada and across America she hopes not only to settle happily in California, but to find the coastal cave that she lived in for six nights, years ago. But the search is not so much for the cave itself, as for the more free-spirited (she believes) girl that lived there. As she drives, she recalls previous travels in the Greek islands, the Yukon, Jamaica, Sumatra, and Seoul, to name a few. These tales can't fail to inspire. Her bravery alone, traveling solo through often uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous, situations is humbling to say the least. But it's this bravery she feels has been lost and she hopes to rekindle by finding her cave.
Several times the author seemed to wander into places I thought only existed in my daydreams. Some were so uncanny they made me gasp. Since childhood I have wanted a glass-walled bedroom perched on the top of a house, entirely surrounded by trees. I clapped my hands in delighted envy when the author set up home in just such a room ... and in a Californian Redwood forest at that. These instances were some of the most poignant for me - the fact that daydreams can so easily be reality if you go out and make them so ... that really hit home.
The travel stories are touching, humourous, enchanting, and filled with travel's usual mix of discomfort, frustration, alarm, and achingly beautiful encounters. All are told with the author's clear natural gift for portraying the lightness and the depth in every situation.
So if the idea of sleeping in a coastal cave, inside a Californian Redwood, on a Mediterranean beach, or on the banks of the remote Yukon river lights something intangible inside, I wholeheartedly recommend you read 'Kiss the Sunset Pig' and let inspiration rain over you.

If you enjoyed Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, or even if you were not lucky enough to read it, Laurie Gough's second book offers the same magical combination of beautiful, descriptive travel writing and soul-searching that never comes across as self-involved or forced. Starting in Canada, Gough takes the reader along on her road trip to rediscover a special cave she once stayed in along the California coast - and how she has evolved since that memorable sojourn. Interspersed throughout the narrative are chapters on some of Gough's other international adventures to such exotic locales as Sumatra and Seoul, South Korea (a place that comes across as utterly unappealing).

Much of the beauty in Gough's writing comes not just from her memorable descriptions of the people, places, and things she encounters and learns from (especially those harrowing Indonesian bus and ferry rides and Marcia, her struggling car), but also from her brutal honesty about some of the low points she struggled through along the way. By the end of the book, the reader truly roots for Gough to find her cave so the journey can go full-circle.

Despite an unexpected outcome, Gough manages to discover the meaning and convey the depth of her experience in a way that never seems heavy-handed or cliched. This is a beautiful and inspiring piece of travel writing that offers many riches for fellow travelers, those who enjoy strong writing, and anyone who has ever considered his or her place and purpose in the universe.

Laurie Gough is an intrepid traveller with a youthful exuberance for adventure. I realize, though, that no matter what one's age, some people are born with wanderlust and have a need to travel the world. The interesting thing is, travellers always return home. That's what Gough does. She's been to thirty countries, hitchhiking thousands of miles by herself though fourteen of them. But she always returns to her hometown of Guelph, Ontario in Canada.

At the beginning of Kiss the Sunset Pig, Gough sets off for California from Guelph in a "blue, beat-up mini Ford Bronco" she calls Marcia. To help with driving and expenses, she picks up a travelling companion named Debbie, whom she has met through an ad and, before the trip begins, has only spoken to on the phone. Debbie gets dropped off in St. Louis, Missouri, at the home of a boyfriend she has never met face to face.

"Sometimes I think I'm still looking for an axis," Gough writes early on in her journey. After reading her book, I think the axis may be the wanderlust. It's who she is. For a person with wanderlust, there is no perfect place to live. A place may seem ideal, for a time, but really it's just a base at which to prepare oneself for the next adventure.

Reading about her encounters with strange and wonderful people is frightening at times (for the reader and for her), but I realize travelling with a companion or in a group, as I usually do, one is not open to the same exciting possibilities. Travelling solo, Gough finds herself talking to strangers more readily as she's more open and more herself. "That's the thing about travelling: it's like peeling away a layer of yourself, exposing yourself to the world so it can expose itself to you".

The structure of the book is an interesting one that works extremely well. (She did the same in her first book, Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, which I highly recommend.) Rather than write a book of travel stories in chronological order, Gough reflects on previous journeys as she drives across the United States in a car that needs lots of garage visits along the way.

One of those reflections is the Greek island of Naxos. There Gough created a temporary home under a small bamboo wind shelter on the beach. Her backpack went missing for a time and to ease her panic, she looked at the "dependable milky rock" of the moon. Gough realized things like that didn't matter "in the great scheme of the universe" (she had her passport and money), and I realize too, as a traveller, one needs to practice non-attachment. Gough describes Greece beautifully as a "land where myth and reality swirl around each other in a luminous haze." Yet she needed to move on, "to see the rest of the world."

One summer, Gough hitchhiked to the Yukon, 3,000 miles from Guelph. She says hitchhiking is "always a surprise study of human beings." Her travelling companion Kevin told her of his own world adventures. His advice was "You have no idea what's in store for you, but if you let yourself go along with the flow of the unknown and accept whatever happens, things seem to work out".

The "exotic detours" of which Gough writes don't all have happy endings. Her teaching job in Kashechewan in Canada's sub-Arctic ended after only three months with Gough defeated and exhausted by the chaos of a third-grade class. A trip to Jamaica with her sister ended quickly, as Gough likes to stay with locals while her sister prefers fancy hotels.

Gough is full of questions about where she belongs. Those questions don't at all detract from the book; they help us relate. After all, travel is about looking for oneself, and as travel-book readers, we get to reflect on similar questions.

On her trip to California, Gough plays Joni Mitchell's "California" that includes the phrase "kiss the sunset pig." She carries a tattered notebook called "Cave Journal" and would like to find that cave on the Pacific again, where she spent some time thirteen years previously. Along with her questions and her longing, Gough has a healthy sense of humour about her encounters along the way. She describes a town on the Great Plains called Grainfield as the "size of a bath mat."

At an earlier age, Gough described herself as "still on my way to everywhere." She has learned that travel can mean "hours, even days of despair, rain, heatwaves, snow, mosquitoes, late trains, no trains, followed by a single moment of dazzling elation. It was those single moments one tended to recall." Gough makes some realizations at the end of her California trip that I don't want to reveal here. But I would say, even though she is older and perhaps wiser, I still see her as on her way to everywhere.

Gough has married since the stories written about in her book and has a baby son. They divide their time between a farmhouse outside of Guelph, Ontario, and a Quebec village. Seventeen of her stories have been anthologised in various literary travel books, including Salon.com's Wanderlust: Real-Life Tales of Adventure and Romance and Sand in My Bra: Funny Women Write from the Road. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Outpost, Canadian Geographic and numerous literary journals.

by Mary Ann Moore
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Klassic Koalas: Vegetarian Delights Too Cute to Eat is a visual feast filled with inventive recipes centered around a Koala inspiration. Inventive, adorable, and completely heart warming; the themed recipes have fun projects for the child chef in ones' house as well as the adult who enjoys the fun aspects of food. I enjoyed the book so much that I picked up another one, as well as the aboriginal stories by the same publishing house, and gave them as gifts to my friends' children who are fascinated by Koala's and their world. This book is definitely a keeper.

Delightful, colorful, and tasteful these recipes not only adhere to the vegetarian population but also with children and best of all, those who share the love of Koalas. What a creative way to entertain and impress the guests!

This original collection of imaginative, fanciful and whimsical recipes should be a must for all mothers, teacher and leaders of children's group - especially preschools. Each inventive recipe uses the koala as its theme. Colorful photographs of each completed creation will pique the interest of children, whatever the age. Easy to follow step-by-step instructions will enable even a unskilled cook to prepare delightful edibles for guests, friends and family. These recipes are just too much fun to overlook!

Vegetarian Delights Too Cute to Eat is literally unbearable! Indeed it is hard to resist this superbly illustrated book of recipes. Enjoy cooking while expressing your love for these creatures.

I read this book in a few hours. It moves very quickly, and is very entertaining. I can relate to the types of people around the office that this book discusses. And just like "Kate," in the book, I take comfort in knowing those folks are in my present and future, but there are ways to deal with them.

If you work with people, or you are ever going to, then this book is for you.

Lessons in Pig Farming
By Cathy Sumeracki

Whether you are climbing the corporate ladder or raising pigs, this is a must read. I will have to admit that I'm the one in my company who keeps her head in the pig crate. You and your co-workers will be able to identify with these characters and incidents. The pig snout is my favorite.

Cathy Sumeracki has done an excellent job of defining the corporate world and describing the downsizing, restructuring, and changes that relate to so many of today's companies. A real survival guide.

This book takes a topic (change management) that can sometimes be too abstract for most people to really understand, and uses humor and common sense to explain it in its simplest terms. The author has a casual and engaging writing style and uses her prior work experience to bring the topic to life. It's a great book, and I'd recommend it as a must read for anyone who either has or is currently going through change in their organization.

This book is extremely relevant to all those people out there who keep struggling with who they are and how much more work it causes them. Of particular interest is the chapter "Keep Your Head Out of the Pig Crate". This is so relevant to people that are trying to get started in the job market. You know, the people that will never say no, in hopes of being the spark that makes everything run efficiently. I speak from personal experience. Once when I was incredibly stressed at work, I went to talk it over with my boss. He didn't say much, but just handed me this book and said "read chapter 2." I took the book, and did it that night. The next morning when I came in, I brought the book back to him. All I could say to him in response was "point taken." That was all. What a great way to resolve an issue! I would recommend this book to anyone, in the job market, in college, or any other place where one is forced work by committe or in a team. The points of the stories are easy to glean from the easy to read manner in which they are addressed.

LIFE ON A PIG FARM is an illustrative and informative children's book that is easy to understand and very entertaining. It features a family and daily duties they have to perform in order to get ready for the annual fair. Some highlights of this book are:
1. A step by step look at raising a litter of piglets
2. Chores to be done on the pig farm
3. A section on going to the fair
4. An fun facts section
5. A list of books and websites kids can go to in order to learn more
6. An informative glossary with special "pig terms" that are clearly defined

This book provides youngsters of all ages with a wonderful peak at the many aspects of life on a pig farm. The wonderful pictures are both fun and informative. Be sure to check out other "Life on a Farm" books by Judy Wolfman.

I bought this for my grandchildren and read it for myself! It is well written and tells a story a child can understand. It answers all the questions that young children tend to ask about pigs, living on a farm, etc. Love it and can hardly wait to give it to my grandaughters!

I was born and raised in a rural area but my grandchildren live in a suburban area. I was glad to find a book which gives them such a good explanation of how pigs are raised, and how time-consuming the work is.

This is the first in a wonderful series of books by Judy Wolfman and David Lorenz Winston, giving an educational and entertaining documentation of farm life. Perfect for the elementary school child. The descriptions are accurate, scientific and mature, but in clear language that children can readily understand. The photos tie in perfectly with the text, and together present the full story of the life cycle of the animal, and show the love and care given by the children who live on the farm. My seven year old grandson thoroughly enjoys these books, and has taken them to school to share with his teacher and classmates.

The book that I read was called The Little Gentleman. The book was about a man called "Mr. Franklin" that has broken his leg and a lady named "Ms. Miller" she took her granddaughter to help her clean the mans house. Then he tells the girl one day that she should go to the meadow to read out loud. After a couple of days a beaver comes and listens to her read. They become friends and he tells her that if any intruder comes to yell a word. After the man has heal his leg he stars to read to himself out loud.

This book rocks!!! I think this is the best book I have read all year. My favorite part was when Moon was chasing Mole. Moon was trying to catch Mole so he could eat him. Then, Bet threw a book at Moon and he ran away like a scaredy cat. That's why I liked this book.

Maura W.

This book rocks! I think it is the best book I have read this year. My favorite part was when Moon was chasing Mole. Moon was trying to catch Mole so he could eat him. Then, Bet threw the book at Moon and he ran away. I think that was funny. So that's why I think this book rocks!

Maura W

The mole I've known the longest is the funky-looking critter who makes a very brief appearance in Shel Silverstein's A GIRAFFE AND A HALF. The mole whose story has meant the most to me is the hopeful and persistent character in David McPhail's MOLE MUSIC. Then there is that most gracious host to tired little bunnies in the Barbara Cooney-illustrated SEVEN LITTLE RABBITS. (The music cassette accompanying that book is forever imprinted on my brain after my having played it as part of several thousand naptimes during my former preschool career.)

There is, in fact, a whole delightful assortment of moles in children's literature. But I'm seeing the mole (Condylura cristata) in a whole new light after being enchanted by the subterranean-dwelling "little gentleman in black velvet" who is at the center of Philippa Pearce's latest book.

"...Mole he is burrowing
his way to the sunlight
He knows there's someone there so strong..."
--Moody Blues, "Watching and Waiting"

Bet lives with her grandparents. Her grandmother tends to Mr. Franklin and to Mr. Franklin's home, and Bet frequently accompanies her grandmother there when not at school. When Mr. Franklin becomes indisposed--having fallen from a ladder and broken his leg--he enlists Bet to sit at the log out on the riverbank by herself and read aloud. Thus the girl comes to meet that most unique mole who is not only well-spoken in the King's English, but is also inadvertently responsible for a pivotal incident in the annals of the British monarchy and, thereby, the subject of a well-known historic toast.

But despite all of that, he is still a most down-to-earth fellow:

"The mole spoke as if indeed in mid-flow of neighborly chat:'...And you probably have little idea of how delicious--how scrumptious--they are when eaten fresh. Of course, I have my worm larder--' He corrected himself. 'Worm larders, well stocked, but the prey pursued, or promptly pounced upon, and eaten fresh--as I've said--Ah! the earthworm, there's nothing like it! You can have your wireworms and your leatherjackets and as many ground beetles as you like to eat--snap! crackle! crunch! You can have them all! Even the toothsome slug has nothing to equal the near liquefaction of worm meat as I pass its length through my fingers sieving out the earth granules from its incessant feeding. Or alternatively tear it to eat it at once in great guzzling, gulping chunks.' "

And as surely as Bet comes to learn the twists and turns that mark the mole's jawdropping personal tale of history, sorcery, and happenstance, readers come to realize that the story of Bet and the mole is an intense tale of friendship and selflessness and choices. And while this is a book that is quite accessible to third and fourth graders, the questions THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN poses, in regard to what one would do for a friend, makes this story also fit in quite nicely alongside any number of YAs that probe similar ground, albeit in a more edgy and mature fashion.

" 'Now,' said Bet with satisfaction, 'we're going to go the whole hog.'
" 'More accurately,' said the mole, 'the whole mole!' "

Philippa Pearce, skillfully digging into British historic trivia, has mined a rich vein with THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN. The book arrived here just in the nick of time--it becomes my read aloud for our family vacation this coming week--and it is sure to be received with similar enthusiasm by all those who somewhere, down deep, are "watching and waiting for a friend to play with."

This is one of my favorite books, children's or otherwise, because of the lovely way it teaches that people can look at the same object or situation and see different things because we are all experiencing life from different perspectives. And the truth is that all of the different things that we see are really there, all of them, even though we may see only one aspect of the whole. The artwork is beautiful and the storytelling soulful. I raised my children on this book, and now that my daughter is seventeen and applying to colleges, I am buying a copy for her to take with her when she moves away from home. This gentle story and the detailed luscious artwork are a treat to be savored and shared across the generations.

The beautiful illustrations help make this book one of my favorite childhood stories. It is a heartwarming story of a little mouse who is an artist. She captures her dearest friends in a painting, in which they all see just themselves. "Little Mouse's Painting is a story that can be enjoyed by everyone.

A lesson in perspective(How things are viewed).
Great illustrations. My 4th grade Art classes loved it.

When searching for just the right gift, I remembered this lovely book. Little Mouse's Painting has everything you may be looking for in a book for young children. Beautiful illustations, sweet as pie story and a lesson to learn for young and old. Little Mouse paints a picture and all her friends see something different in it. It will become a family favorite.

I love the Little Whistle Books but I have always wondered why he is nocturnal. Our guinea pigs are not nocturnal. Anyway, the illustrations are cute and funny and the storyline is interesting.
By Miranda Longhurst, Age 6

Other reviews have said these books are rather treacly in flavor, but not so to children. In its own pleasing simple and kind words, these books tell the story of Little Whistle, a little guinea pig, who is the only live animal in a toy store. But magical things happen at night and the toys come to life and along with Little Whistle they play and listen to their good friend, Soldier's nightly stories.

In this third book, though, Little Whistle has to don his medical gear because Soldier cannot tell the bedtime story as he is ill with a headache.

Little Whistle comes to the rescue! After hopping into a toy train, he finds a toy first-aid kit and helps his friend with bandages and toy medicine. Little Whistle has cured his friend and Soldier is now able to tell his night stories to all the toy--and to Little Whistle.

Wonderful drawings and a wonderful book for children.

Little Whistle is a guinea pig who lives in a toy store. When the toy store closes for the night he is off for adventure. When Little Whistle goes out this night he finds that his friend toy soldier is sick with a really bad headache. He must find a way to make him well again. He goes and finds a first aid kit and makes him well again. Toy Soldier is better in no time and able to read stories to the babies! Little Whistle saved the day!

Little Whistle is a very cute character. There are other books to look for in the series as well: Little Whistle, Little Whistle's Christmas , and Little Whistle's Dinner Party.

I would recommend this story to others. It's full of wonder and imagination. Lots of kids have guinea pigs for pets and enjoy stories about them.

Other reviews have said these books are rather treacly in flavor, but not so to children. In its own pleasing simple and kind words, these books tell the story of Little Whistle, a little guinea pig, who is the only live animal in a toy store. But magical things happen at night and the toys come to life and along with Little Whistle they play and listen to their good friend, Soldier's nightly stories.

In this third book, though, Little Whistle has to don his medical gear because Soldier cannot tell the bedtime story as he is ill with a headache.

Little Whistle comes to the rescue! After hopping into a toy train, he finds a toy first-aid kit and helps his friend with bandages and toy medicine. Little Whistle has cured his friend and Soldier is now able to tell his night stories to all the toys--and to Little Whistle.

Wonderful drawings and a wonderful book for children.