SLENDER ELLA AND HER FAIRY HOGFATHER
by Vivian Sathre
paper 0-440-41397-4 Porcine protagonists lend a new twist to an all-too-familiar fairy tale. Poor Ella, a “sweet little pig,” is stuck with two mean stepsisters. Because Ella isn’t as plump as other pigs, her “steppies” tag her with the name “Slender Ella.” With her stepsisters’ teasing and all of the housework, Ella never has any fun, until the day the Diamond Snout Hay Ranch hosts a hoedown. Ella, with the help of her Fairy Hogfather, cuts loose and struts her stuff, winning the heart of Harley Joe, “the roundest, fattest pig she’d ever seen” in the process. At midnight she runs off, leaving behind a diamond-studded cowboy boot, before her shiny car turns back into a tractor. Harley Joe tracks Ella down and, as expected, the pair live happily ever after. Lambert’s pigs are perfectly endearing, while the folksy, country-western characters and home-spun dialogue add amusing moments and clever detail to this age-old tale. Emerging readers will be delighted by this unpretentious, comic tale. (Fiction. 6-9)