TIDY PIG (JUST RIGHT FOR 4'S AND 5'S)

A very tidy pig, Florinda spends all her days keeping her house and garden clean and neat until Uncle Werner and his entire family come to live with her and create complete chaos.

PreSchool--Florinda Pig is some neatnik. She not only keeps her house totally tidy, but she also dusts the hollyhocks in her yard. When her uncle and his family come for an extended stay and make pigs of themselves, Florinda is run ragged cleaning up their prodigious messes. Exhausted, she takes to her bed until the relatives realize they should pick up after themselves. The full-color illustrations feature hairy, rosy-cheeked pigs in relentlessly cheery cartoons. Florinda's passive re treat to her bed sends a powerful mes sage to children on how they should solve their problems. Anthony Browne's Piggybook (Knopf, 1986) presents an alternative solution to the problem of unhelpful people. Tidy Pig is a marginal purchase at best. Lucy Mouse lives in a dollhouse. She discov ers that all books feature blue skies, while the sky outside her window is white with pink flowers (the wallpaper design of the child's room). This leads Lucy on a journey to find the blue sky. On her quest, she runs into various toys that help her to reach the window of the child's room, where she finds a blue sky and realizes that the world is bigger than her dollhouse. The text is overlong and padded with too much repetition, unnecessary dialogue, and detail. There are also unfortunate breaks in the logical sequence of events. The illustra tions, done in light pastels, are pedestri an. The text, coupled with the sedate illustrations and unimaginative design, all add up to a humdrum experience. With the availability of mouse heroines such as Henkes' Sheila Rae, the Brave (Greenwillow, 1987), Holabird's Ange lina (Crown), and Vincent's Celestine (Greenwillow), Lucy and her dollhouse can easily be passed by.
-Marge Loch- Wouters, Menasha Public Library, WI
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.