A Pig in the Palace

PreS-Gr 1–This entertaining story about a misfit boar named Bobo will delight readers of all ages. Bobo is covered in fleas and living on his own in the woods when he receives a surprise invitation to attend a dinner with the new queen at the royal palace. After being chauffeured to the giant royal home, Bobo wreaks havoc in numerous ways: He bumps into the royal staff, knocks over vases, spills food, and generally makes a mess everywhere he goes. Bobo is eventually told to get out, but he doesn’t want to leave without dining first. A surprise ending involving a squealing queen, also a boar, helps readers understand why Bobo was invited to the palace in the first place. In the end, this tale is about the triumph of fun over fussiness. Bahrampour’s bright watercolor illustrations are cartoonish, featuring mostly white characters, and filled with amusing details. In one set of pictures, Bobo uses his teeth to pull a loose thread from a man’s jacket, wrapping the thread around columns, and completely unraveling the coat until the man is standing there with no top on. Other illustrations clearly convey the characters’ emotions, including the disdain the royal staff feels towards Bobo at first, and the joy they feel at the end as they watch Bobo and the queen head off into the forest.