Pocket Piggies Opposites!: Featuring the Teacup Pigs of Pennywell Farm

by Richard Austin (Photographer)

Overview

The Pocket Piggies are back in their third irresistible board book for babies and toddlers, this time illustrating the concept of opposites. The star residents of Pennywell Farm in Devon, England, pocket pigs are tiny enough to fit in the palm of a hand, and they love posing for the camera as much as the camera loves them. The chunky, made-for-little-hands board book format is the perfect platform for these friendly and photogenic ambassadors of cute.

With bright, colorful photographs and simple text, Pocket Piggies Opposites! is a delightful way for young children to learn about opposites. There’s “Messy” (piggy splattered with paint) and “Clean” (piggy taking a bubble bath). “Cold” (piggy playing in the snow) and “Hot” (piggy building a sand castle on the beach). And more, all lovingly photographed by Richard Austin, Pennywell’s exclusive animal photographer.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761187097
Publisher:	Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/09/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	22
File size:	60 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	1 - 4 Years

About the Author

Richard Austin is a professional photographer who’s worked with newspapers and magazines for the past twenty years. He lives in Devon, England.

Editorial Reviews

Pocket Piggies Opposites is a concept book featuring teacup pigs to explain opposites for infants and toddlers. A small format board book with tiny creatures teaching small children makes great sense, and the photos are additionally captivating. There’s really two concepts used to inspire conversation between adult and child: the words on the page and the images. For example, the “inside/outside” spread includes pigs in a pink polka dotted house wearing matching spotted rain boots. They’ve escaped the rain to hide in the house. But there’s more to discuss—flowers in the field, four feet, black spots, green grass, pigs together and alone. Each read emphasizes something new and the book stays fresh. A book of opposites is really a list of abstract ideas, and it’s up to the images and repeated readings to help merge these ideas in the child’s mind. Some relationships are more familiar—hot/cold, near/far, quiet/loud—and some are more opaque, such as messy/clean (surprisingly not dirty/clean). The closer the ideas are to a child’s experience, the more they remember. Photos help foster concrete connection. When one pig’s face is paint splattered, and another is in the bathtub, an empathetic child will recall personal experience and identify what’s happening. Adjectives provide a stretch that is just right, challenging toddlers to name things in a way that is within reach. The spreads are not consistently captivating. The hot/cold page includes a subtle dusting of snow, which is not the most concrete representation of cold. The front/back image could easily be misconstrued as face/tail and quiet/loud literally depicts hiding in leaves and playing a piano, far from the intended meaning. Despite small imperfections, the book is a wonderful platform for parent/child discussions that can go in many unintended directions. Reviewer: Renee Bock; Ages 1 to 3.

Children's Literature - Renee Bock

2016-03-16
Itty-bitty piggies demonstrate opposites. An adorable "small" black-spotted piglet gazes out at readers from next to a "big" sleeping adult in the first double-page spread. Turn the page to find a "messy" piglet daubed with bright paint opposite a "clean" piglet artfully draped with lather in a tub, with bubbles floating around. One mildly inventive spread depicts two sleepy piggies "inside" a little toy house with two pairs of pink, polka-dot wellies flanking the door; opposite is one piggy standing in the grass "outside" with all four wellies on. None of the opposite pairs is particularly startling, and although most more or less illustrate the concepts, readers will have to work hard to see that the "cold" piggy is walking across frost-rimed leaves. (The "hot" piggy is sunning itself in a folding chair.) Back-of-the-book copy trumpets that its models are "Those Famous Teacup Pigs of Pennywell Farm," an English breeder of "miniature pigs." Since the subjects have been so studiously posed with toy props, however, there is no sense of scale to give readers a sense of how diminutive they actually are, and to the uneducated eye, they might as well just be equally adorable full-size piglets. Cute but nothing more. (Board book. 6 mos.-2)

Kirkus Reviews