DESERT ROSE AND HER HIGHFALUTIN HOG

An old English folktale gets a Texas makeover. Desert Rose is one plucky Texan pig farmer. When she finds a gold nugget, she uses it to procure a pig. She picks a pig sure to win first prize at the state fair. The problem is that she picks a picky pig, a highfalutin’ hog that will not drink up the water in the creek so they can make their way to the fair. She pleads for help from many desert animals, but none will help her until she strikes a bargain with an ambitious armadillo with attitude. Hooooooeeeeeey! This partic’lar offering combines regional dialogue and a sophisticated vocabulary in the name of tongue-twisting, folksy fun. Graves’s rich and vibrant acrylic illustrations add to the charm by giving all the characters, human and animal alike, plenty of personality. The plot, lifted nearly lock, stock and barrel from Joseph Jacobs’s “The Old Woman and the Pig,” is pretty bare bones, but readers will be so focused on the prose and on plucky Desert Rose, they probably won’t notice. (Picture book. 6-10)