Sunday, September 20, 2015

Pig and Small by Alex Latimer

One morning Pig wakes up with a squeak.  His nose is squeaking!  It squeaks through all his daily activities including bath time so pig "got, the big medical book down from his bookshelf and looked up Squeaky Nose Syndrome."  He finds a long list of squeaky syndromes but nothing about noses. Pig squints down to the end of his nose and sees a tiny bug waving and squeaking.

Pig knows the little bug wants to be his friend but their size differences will certainly make for some serious lessons.  They try bike riding (Bug can't assist much here on their tandem bike) and chess (Pig falls asleep because each move takes Bug so long). Bug makes a cake and knits matching jumpers. It seems all the activities they attempt have predictable outcomes.  "Pig and Bug were very sad.  They'd tried so hard to be friends, but it just wasn't working. So they said goodbye ..."  At that moment Pig sees a newspaper with an article about a movie entitled "The Pirate, the Ninja and the invisible dog."  He has at last found something they can do together.

Friendships are always about adjustments.  This odd pair of friends love the movie and then discover so many other things to enjoy together.   By the end of the story they are also ready to welcome a new friend too. And yes he is also very different.

Here is a web site for the author.  We have most of his books in our school library.



You might like to follow this book with Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner which is also a joyous book about an unlikely friendship.  When I visited Edinburgh recently I found the main public library in the centre of the city which has huge and very special murals painted by Catherine Rayner.  I love her art work.



Sylvia is a dragon.  She is lonely and alone. Then one day she finds a little bird. Together they travel to the moon.  There is a catastrophe which will seal their friendship forever. This is a book for a very young child and I think it is one you will re-read many times.  I have so many picture books in this blog about friendship - just click the link on the sidebar or check out my pinterest list.  You can see two cover pictures here - which one do you like best?








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