09/18/2020
K-Gr 2—Greed and the importance of minutiae in deal-making loom large in this lyrical picture book written in rhyming couplets that bounce off the tongue. The main character is also the villain. Penny-pinching Pig has cash in his pocket, and a desire to build his dream home on the property he has just purchased in the countryside. Miserly Pig heads to town seeking laborers, and there he meets three other animals and dupes them into building him a mansion for a third of the wages he implies they will receive. Cat, Pup, and Hen build a house for Pig, but Pig is not satisfied, and demands a larger one. After seeing their second iteration, Pig demands an even larger remodel, and the end product is a mansion of epic proportions and features that pleases the materialistic owner. When the three laborers go to collect their wages, Pig cheats them by following the letter of the law and not the spirit, but sweet revenge is on its way. The shock value provided by the last few pages of text and artwork is spot-on. Cotton's words have a great cadence; this is one to read out loud to groups. Freeman's colorful illustrations pair well with the rhyming couplets, although the faces of the anthropomorphic animals lack expression. VERDICT A delightful twist at the end of the story stops just short of morbid, and highlights themes of fairness, hard work, just desserts, and the importance of reading the fine print. Recommended for fiction collections.—Lauren Younger, Univ. of Dallas Lib.
2020-07-14
A greedy pig gets a big comeuppance after shortchanging artisans building his new home.
After coming into a fortune, Pig makes plans for a home that befits his new wealth. He enlists a cat, a dog, and a hen to do the work, enthusiastically promising four gold coins for the build-out. Pig’s modest brick home (echoing, of course, “The Three Little Pigs”) is not enough; he demands more and more until the hardworking animals have built a huge mansion. When Pig is finally happy, he gives them four gold coins to share, not four coins each, throwing in another two as a bonus. The unhappy crew returns at night to take half of the home, literally (“Fair is fair,” is an ongoing refrain), leaving the structure to wobble and fall on Pig, all 7,000 bricks of it. Most surprising: The collapse kills Pig. The End. The notion that Pig dies over a business deal might raise lots of questions, and the abrupt finale offers no comfort or information on what happens to the aggrieved but murderous builders. The consequences of bad business are pretty serious despite the bright color palette and cute character designs. Perhaps it’s a good lesson to teach early, but Cotton, author of the exquisitely stark The Road Home, illustrated by Sarah Jacoby (2016), does it without the finesse of her previous work. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.5-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
A book to teach kindergartners not to swindle home-building contractors, in case they need that. (Picture book. 4-9)
