HUBERT THE PUDGE

Hubert never expects to grow up: All pudgies are destined for the slaughterhouse before they’re a year old. But one day, he slips through a hole in the fence and escapes to the forest, where he grows to full pudgie-hood—that is to say, “superchunky-normous!” His new great size allows him to liberate the rest of the pudgies and force Farmer Jake into a new career as a manufacturer of tofu dogs. The moral’s never far from the surface of this forthrightly subtitled tale, but it’s leavened by a hearty dollop of humor. Drescher makes the most of his absurd premise, adding just enough nonsense details (pudgie squeals power car alarms, for instance) to elicit chuckles from his young readers. Hubert himself, like all pudgies, is pink and pig-like in shape, but his face, with its wide, staring eyes, is a blandly grotesque caricature of a human’s—though his nose is shaped like a parsnip. The goofy cartoons carry the tongue-in-cheek tale through its full arc, the inevitability of pudgie freedom never in doubt. Good, clean vegetarian fun. (Picture book. 4-8)