Module 9: The Great Pig Search by Eileen Christelow

Summary: Bert and Ethel’s pigs have escaped from their truck. Soon the town noticed that their clothes were missing shortly after. Bert was upset but decided to move on until he received a post card. It was from his pigs in a town in Florida. Ethel feels like the two of them need a vacation. They decide on Florida if Bert promises to forget about the pigs. Everywhere they go Bert asks for the missing pigs but no one has seen them. He even mistakenly attacks a woman who he thinks is a pig. The police let him go and assure him that there are no pigs in town. The next day, Bert and Ethel go on a fishing trip and catch the biggest fish ever. He is thrown overboard and is rescued by a fisherman. The story is featured in the newspaper along with photographs. The fisherman is actually the pig her was searching for.

Citation: Christelow, E. (2001). The great pig search. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Impressions: I really liked this story. The best part was the illustrations. It was like a mini where’s waldo because the pigs that Bert and Ethel were looking for were all over the place. I like that they were dresses in human clothing and worked in places that served Bert and Ethel.

Reviews:

From Booklist

Ages 5-8. This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed home, but THESE little pigs have escaped from the back of Bert and Ethel's truck and hightailed it out of town, along with a lot of clothes belonging to the locals. A clue to the peripatetic porkers' whereabouts soon arrives in the form of a postcard from Florida containing a one-word message: "Oink." Before you can say "Wee wee wee all the way home," the hapless hog farmers have headed to the Sunshine State in pursuit of their porcine property. Readers of Christelow's The Great Pig Escape (1994), also about these feckless farmers, will know the pigs don't have to worry. And once again, kids will delight in spotting the cleverly disguised swine, who romp about unnoticed under Bert and Ethel's very noses. Fans of Walter R. Brooks' immortal Freddy books may smell an homage in this sprightly story, but others will simply enjoy the farcical search and the cheerful cartoon illustrations that depict it.

Cart, M. (September 1, 2001).  Booklist Review. Retrieved from  http://www.booklistonline.com/The-Great-Pig-Search-Eileen-Christelow/pid=1101525

From Publishers Weekly

In this rib-tickling sequel to The Great Pig Escape, two farmers seek hogs that are hidden in plain sight. As Bert and Ethel shrug and scratch their heads over their lost pigs, other townspeople go about their business some of them wearing floppy hats and carrying newspapers to shield their faces. How strange. After a postcard reading "Oink!" arrives from Florida, Bert books a beach vacation and spends it asking, "Seen any runaway pigs?" Neither the squealing hotel clerk, the restaurant's pink maitre-d' nor the policewoman with the funny snout can help him. Christelow places sympathy firmly with the swine by suggesting the farmers' intentions. Bert complains, "I raised those pork chops from baby piglets!" and Ethel reminds him that freedom "beats being bacon any day." In her casually drawn ink-and-watercolor images, pigs in wigs, scarves and swimsuits grin conspiratorially; when Bert falls off a fishing boat, he doesn't notice he's been rescued by an amiable porcine sailor. The author gets a few more giggles out of a classic comedy plot, pitting brazen outlaws against thickheaded authorities. Ages 5-8.
Publishers Weekly associates. (September 3, 2001). Children's review. Publishers Weekly. Retrieved from

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-618-04910-3.

Suggestions: I like that this books contained a map that led to alligators. I think that students can make map of their own of buried treasure of some sort. It’s a summer and vacation story so it could be grouped together with other stories of the same theme. Students could write about their summer vacations or where they would like to go.