PIGS, PIGS, PIGS!

Another exuberantly rhymed and illustrated animal invasion from the creators of Cats, Cats, Cats! (2001) and Dogs, Dogs, Dogs! (p. 738): “The pigs are coming to play, hooray! / The pigs are coming today. / We’d better take care to completely prepare, / A minute’s too long to delay.” Prepare how? With “a feast for ten thousand at least,” beginning with “Fried green tomatoes and mashed sweet potatoes,” ending with “plum cakes and rum cakes and crumb cakes,” and a mouthwatering menu in between. It’s all dished up in Oller’s vigorous, crowded watercolors by a cast of happy townsfolk for an even happier cast of energetic porkers who thunder in, scarf down the goodies, then before thundering out lead their hosts in a hog-wild hootenanny. As messy and sidesplitting as David McPhail’s Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore (1993), this parade of porcine party goers will bring the house down—and just like its rotund revelers, the tale has a twist at the end: “We’ve got to hold steady, we’ve got to get ready, / our next guests are coming—the sheep!” (Picture book. 5-7)