Predictable Book

[Micah]

Summary
Laura Numeroff creates a story of domino effects, starting with a young girl giving a pig a pancake. This simple event turns into a sequence of events that ends up with the pig wanting a pancake once again. Because the story ends how it started, the reader can assume what will happen even after the last page of the book.

Professional Review #1
Alexandria LaFaye, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
Written with the same whimsical humor as the mouse and moose stories, Numeroff's book is another great addition to the insatiable animal collection. Through the behavior of a delightfully demanding pig, readers are shown the wonderfully erratic fashion in which young children seek out what they want, change their minds, and create general havoc in the course of a single day. Numeroff allows children to see themselves from a different angle by putting the child protagonist into the shoes of an awed, compliant, but sometimes nervous caretaker who must pick up after the pig. It may also give kids an idea of what it is like to be a parent. The vibrant illustrations are full of energy and humor to complement the twisting and turning narrative. 1998, HarperCollins. Ages 3 to 7.

Professional Review #2
Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1998)
The familiar circular formula employing a cookie-eating, milk-guzzling mouse and muffin-eating moose now showcases a pancake-eating pig who, as readers may have come to expect, might be in need of some maple syrup. The domino effect is in full force: The sticky syrup must be dealt with in the bath; the bath demands a rubber duck; the duck prompts the pig to recall her farm origins; and so on. One adventure after another includes tap-dancing, picture-taking, and treehouse-building. In the act of interior decorating, the use of sticky wallpaper reminds the pig of the maple syrup, which leads back to the pancake. The funny, clever formula creates just the right amount of anticipation, with plenty of visual humor accompanying the antics. Whether the homesick pig is wrapped in a bath towel clutching her rubber duck or pirouetting on a tightrope, she'll please fans of the previous books, who will relish more of the same. 1998, HarperCollins. © 1998 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Response to Reviews
I have read this book, along with others in the series of If you Give A…, to the 3 and 5 year old kids I babysit, so I know from first hand that children love these books. LaFaye makes a strong point in her review that this book creates a new perspective for children to see what caretakers go through when the ones they care for are in a demanding state. I never thought of the story like this, but I think this book could be used to teach a great lesson on that and putting themselves in others’ shoes in order to see new perspectives. Kirkus mentions how the “clever formula creates just the right amount of anticipation”. When I read this to the kids I babysit, I could tell they were anticipating the next page but that they were enjoying the visual humor on the pages as well.