Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
A Pig Parade Is a Terrible Idea
Illustrator: Kevin Hawkes
Picture Book
For ages 5 to 9
Simon and Schuster, 2010 ISBN: 978-1416979227
Most of us love parades. We love the music, the floats, the bands, and the giant balloons that float above the street. What’s not to love? Now, imagine a different sort of parade, imagine what it might be like to attend a parade whose participants are all pigs. Can you see those porcine wonders marching down the street tootling their horns and oompa pa-ing their sousaphones? Can you see them in their red and white majorette uniforms with bright brass buttons on their coats and white plumes on their hats?
Perhaps you can imagine all these wonders, but let me tell you that a pig parade “is a terrible idea.” Pigs hate to march, being partial to snuffling instead. They walk around with their noses to the ground looking for tidbits to eat. This might be a fine thing to do in a farmyard, but “snuffling is simply an inappropriate way to conduct yourself along a parade route.”
If you think pigs will fancy those majorette uniforms you had better think again. Pigs hate uniforms, and trying to get them to wear them will be neigh on impossible, and this is just the beginning; there is a veritable litany of reasons why a pig parade is a terrible idea.
Readers will be hard pressed not to laugh out loud when they read this book and look at the artwork. Michael Ian Black’s deliciously funny words are perfectly paired with Kevin Hawkes’ illustrations to give readers a picture book experience that is truly on
