Pigsty by Mark Teague

Pigsty by Mark Teague

Rating: 4 stars

Lorelei and Ben are good helpers when it's clean up time, but I can't wait to just say, "Ok, go clean up your room!"  My job will be to simply inspect it.  (I'm sure no nagging will be involved.)  This book is a funny look at a boy who refuses to clean his room.  It literally turns into a pigsty!

When his mother just throws up her hands and says Wendell can choose the level of cleanliness in his own room, he is ecstatic.  Even though one pig has already moved in.  Then another joins in, and Wendell still thinks it's great--they play monopoly and other games together.  But then two more join the mix, and suddenly he finds his basketball flat after it was used as a stool and his comic books with hoof prints all over them.  He decides for himself that enough is enough, organizes a swine cleaning crew, and cleans up.  The pigs, of course, move out because it's too clean, and only return for the occasional game night.

We like Mark Teague's words and love his artwork--his pictures seem big and in-your-face in a great way.  There are clever little things hidden in some pages, like one of the last pages where the pick-up truck that takes the pigs home has a license plate that reads: EIEIO.  I liked that, when I pointed out and explained it to Lorelei, she got the joke.  I'm pretty sure she got the joke (either way, I appreciate that she giggled a bit...just the right thing to do when Mommy makes a joke or points out a joke!)  I like the play-on-words lesson in this book--Lorelei understood that, literally, a pigsty is a place where pigs live.  And figuratively, it's a really messy, dirty place.  I don't know how amused I'll be when the day comes that she calls my car a pigsty, because it most certainly is most days of the month!