My Pig Amarillo
PreS-Gr. 1. There are many books about children losing a pet, but this one about a boy and his pig has both a softness and brightness that transcends other, more traditional, stories. Youngsters will feel the affection between Pablito, a Guatemalan boy, and his pig, Amarillo, just from looking at the book cover, which pictures the porker draped over his boy like a child on his father's shoulders. Pablito received the pig as a gift from his grandfather when it was a tiny baby, yellow in color (hence the name Amarillo). The pig and the boy become fast friends, as a series of vignettes shows. But one day, Amarillo is not in its hut. The boy is distraught, crying into his pillow, "I am waiting for you to come back, but you don't." Nothing comforts Pablito, not even the wooden pig Grandfather carves, until All Saint's Day. By now it is clear that Amarillo will not return, but Grandfather says they can send a message with a kite on the holiday. Pablito works hard on his kite, sending it into the sky at the cemetery. Then over a mountain appears an enormous cloud. It's in the shape of a pig, and to Pablito, it seems Amarillo is smiling down at him. Ichikawa uses her Guatemalan setting very effectively, but she also wraps the story in universal emotions: love, longing, grief, hope. The pen-and-watercolor artwork brings children close to all facets of Pablito's story. On one level, the ending is utterly realistic: Amarillo is gone. But the miracle of comfort is there, too, smiling down in the face of a pig.Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved