(Im)Perfectly Piggy

Happy Thursday!   It’s time once again for an Easy Picture Book roundup and today I have one (nearly) perfect,  one not so perfect and one Positively Piggy book for your entertainment and edification.   The Perfect Nest,  written by Catherine Friend and illustrated by John Manders is a wonderful story about a cat who builds the "perfect nest"  in order to entice a chicken to lay an egg so that he can make the perfect omelet.   Things somehow don’t go quite as planned.   While a chicken is quickly attracted to the nest,  a duck and a goose soon follow,  all three birds settling quarrelsomely into the one perfect nest.   The poor cat tries everything he can think of but these bird won’t budge.   Until he finally thinks to tell them about an even more perfect nest on the next farm over.   Off the three birds trek in search of a perfect nest,  then just as the cat is about to break out the omelet pan,  the three eggs hatch, one-two-three and the cat, hesitantly at first,  takes on the task of caring for the newborn birds.     An absolutely delightful story book.   Highly Recommended.

Sadly,  Jan Fearnley’s  The Search For The Perfect Child,  is considerably less satisfying.   A dog detective has been charged with locating "the perfect child" and wonders over the course of a number of well illustrated pages,  just what would make for "a perfect child".    In the end,  the dog announces that he has foudn the perfect child and that it is You, the reader.    While I liked the illustrations,  many of which were quite clever,  the story did not work for me.  It might have been a much better book had Fearnely used an author, rather than being both author and illustrator.   Not Recommended.

And finally today,  Emmett’s Pig is a wonderful story book written by Mary Stolz and illustrasted by Garth Williams.    Emmett is a city boy who really, really, REALLY likes pigs.   After his parents refuse to allow him to keep a pig in their home, and also rule out moving to a farm for practical reasons,  Emmett’s birthday arrives and they take him for a drive out to a farm,  where he meets a pig.   His parents and the farmer tell him that it is his pig,  even though it lives on the farm and he lives in the city.    The parents drive Emmett out to the farm once a month to visit his pig, and Emmet keeps up with the farmer, Mr. Carson, through the mails.    A very cute and beautifully illustrated story book.   Recommended.