The Pig Scramble treated us to rich illustrations and a poignant, intelligent plot that kept my kids talking. Clarence lives on a family farm feeling overshadowed by his bigger, older brothers. He is trying to find his place on the farm.
The country fair provides this opportunity in the form of...you can guess. But even before the main event we are treated to subtleties somewhat rare in kid's books. Both author Jessica Kinney and illustrator Sarah Brannen's work to craft characters that make us wonder. Uncle Leon's workshop is drawn to a level of detail that we all found fascinating. Farm life is revealed through beautiful and detailed watercolors.
The moral is easy to identify; find your own place in the world and be yourself. I appreciated how the author treated the reader as smart enough to figiure this out instead of a paint by numbers path to the end.
