ALL PIGS ARE BEAUTIFUL

Allowing that his favorite was fierce-looking Monty, a 600- pound "large white" who had ten "wives" and was a "pushover" who loved to have his head scratched, the author of Babe, the Gallant Pig (1985) ruminates companionably about the habits and characters of pigs. Onetime farmer King-Smith treats his subject with perspicacity; this may be a paean to pigs, embellished with amusing "things a pig might be saying" ("Don't you dare pick up one of my babies"), but it's not sentimental; he even observes that a sow may accidentally squash her own young. And there's a sly subtext: pigs are wonderfully varied in size, shape, and color, and also, in many ways the author details, a lot like people—"But all pigs are beautiful." Jeram picks up King-Smith's affection and enthusiasm with humorously limned porcines in vigorous pen lines dappled with soft watercolors. Entertaining and genuinely informative: the best yet in the uneven new "Read and Wonder" series. (Picture book. 4+)