bilbopooh's Full Review: David M. McPhail - Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore!
Pigs are popular subjects of children's books. I can think of at least a dozen different authors who have written about pigs with great success. Of course, one of my all-time favorite fictional pigs is Wilbur, the humble fellow at the heart of Charlotte's Web. David McPhail, author of several books about pigs, cites Wilbur as the source of his fascination with the creatures. In Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore!, McPhail provides a plethora of pigs, testing the patience of even the most ardent fans of these mud-loving mammals.
That's because these pigs are... well, pigs. They barge into the narrator's house late at night and start raiding his fridge and making a massive mess of his house, and they also manage to order dozens of pizzas and leave him with the bill. They are able to converse freely with humans, and they wear clothes, which makes the book seem a bit surreal; generally, highly anthropomorphic characters and humans don't mix. When pigs are wearing clothes, as in Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks or Poppleton, people just seem out of place. But the narrator is a person. A very put-out person. Well, wouldn't you be with this sort of unexpected party on your hands?
Most of the McPhail books I've read have been written in prose, but this one features rhymed narration. All told, there are 23 stanzas of four lines each, with the second and fourth lines rhyming. In general, each line contains about four syllables, so they're very short verses. There are a few pages with no text and one page with two stanzas, but generally it's one stanza per page, and the pictures do most of the talking.
When the narrator utters the title phrase, he isn't kidding. The house is absolutely overrun with pigs of every description. Pigs in kilts! Cowboy pigs! Pigs who think they're the next incarnation of Elvis! Most of the pigs are pink, but some are brown, some are white and some are black. And goodness, are they rowdy! There's never any explanation of where the pigs come from - though since the pizza delivery boy is a pig as well, I wonder if the man might really be the odd one out here and in some sort of bizarre through-the-looking-glass experience ended up in a world dominated by pigs.
Those who can't get enough of pigs will no doubt enjoy the illustrations. McPhail obviously poured a lot of creativity and affection into these paintings. His narration is also enjoyable, and lines like "Pigs from England, / Pigs from France, / Pigs in just / Their Underpants" are likely to garner giggles. As a story, there's not really a whole lot there, but think of it as a series of pig paintings with an accompanying silly poem, and it works just fine.
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