Piggie Pie

Title: Piggie Pie
Author: Margie Palatini
Publisher: Clarion Books
Date of Publication: 1995
Illustrator: Howard Fine
Genre Designation: Children’s Fantasy
Readability Lexile: K-2 (ages 5-8)

Summary:
Piggie Pie is a fun story about Gritch the witch who is trying to satisfy her appetite for some Piggie Pie.  After going through her cookbook Gritch finds one BIG problem, she is missing her main ingredient...the pigs!  Gritch thinks, and thinks about where she would find some nice plump pink pigs.  Gritch finds the perfect place right in the phonebook, Old Mcdonalds Farm!  Off she goes and of course Gritch sees plenty pink plumpy pigs when she is flying into the farm.  The pigs act fast and decide to trick Gritch the Witch.  When she lands there is not a pig in sight, there are ducks and cows but no pigs.  Gritch is starting to get angry so she goes straight to this Old Mcdonald Fellow, she asks him where all his pigs are.  He tells her that he has no pigs.  Gritch is frustrated, exhausted, and starving.  Out of nowhere this big bad wolf comes up and tells Gritch to give it up, he has been chasing those pigs for ages and he has had no luck.  Gritch decides to ask big bad wolf if he would like to come home with her for lunch... after all he still has some meat on his bones but little does she know that big bad wolf is thinking the same exact thing!

Evaluation:
Piggie Pie was an extremely fun story, with a surprising amount of laughter.  The way the author brought in other fairy tales throughout the story was a pleasant surprise.  The story did a great job of using alliteration and rhyming throughout the story.  When alliteration and rhyming are used in children’s stories sometimes it can make it rather difficult to read the story aloud because you find yourself tongue tied.  This was not the case with this story.  The author did a great job with word choice throughout the story and mixing both alliteration and rhyming in a way that it did not affect the flow of the story.  The author also used personification within the story by giving human traits to some non-living things.  The reader saw this when the pigs and wolf were talking to Gritch the witch.  The story goes back to the age old theme of out smarting the “bad person” and this is exactly what the pigs did to Gritch the witch.  This story is a great read when it comes to alliteration, rhyming, and having a good laugh.

Illustrations:
I loved the illustrations in this book!  They were lively, vibrant and brought a whole new life to an age old tale.  The pictures went really well with the story that was being told and added great imagery to the words that were being read.  I actually have gone back and looked through this book a few times just because I enjoyed the fun, humorous illustrations that much myself. 

Mini-lesson:
This mini-lesson would focus on alliteration. Students will be split up into small groups, 3-4 students per group.  The students will then pick one of the pre-selected objects that have already been placed on one of our tables within our classroom.  The groups will then take their object and come up with an alliteration for it.  Example: Item: Flower, Alliteration: Farrah’s Fancy Flower Fumbled.  Once the groups have come up with their alliteration, they will draw their object and write their sentence.  This will be the beginning of our alliteration ABC book.