THE PIG IN THE FLOPPY BLACK HAT

Beginning as a floppy black hat trick this soon turns into a shaggy pig story as the bold, squarish little pig convinces an increasing retinue that he is really a magician (""Have you ever seen a pig wearing a floppy black hat before?""), gets elected mayor, captures the bandit Klouse von Bimbo and tricks the king into turning over his crown. When the real magician shows up to claim the lost hat, the pig's former followers are quick to condemn the ""piggishness of this most pigly of pigs,"" but pig himself escapes with a handful of stolen cupcakes and his ego intact. Pig knows that while the world is impressed by props he can scrape by on his own self-confidence, and his adventures -- launched in a vaguely Mexican/medieval kingdom and spoken in bookish British accents -- proceed with an exuberant if rather disorderly eclecticism. However, short-winded readers should be warned that Parks never uses one word where four might be more ""absolutely,"" ""authentistically,"" ""visibly,"" ""bumfazzling.