Pigsty

Pigsty by Teague
2007

     Wendell room was a mess. His mother told him to go upstairs and clean his room, that it was "turning into a pigsty." When he gets to his room, he finds a pig in his bed.  Wendell didn't mind the pig at all, and he just picked up a couple of things and shoved them in his closet. His mom came to check on the room and seeing that little to no progress had been made, she said "If you want to live in pigsty, that's up to you."  The next day, when he got from school he found two pigs had now settled in his bedroom.  He figured that as long as there weren't that many pigs, there was enough room to share and now he actually had playmates to hang out and play Monopoly with him.  But as the room got messier, the number of pigs kept increasing and finally, when he sees they've eaten some of his baseball cards and stepped all over his comic books, Wendell's had enough.  He organizes a cleaning crew with the help of all the pigs and leaves his room spotless.  The pigs don't really enjoy the newly cleaned room and say their goodbyes.  Though Wendell will see them again on certain Monopoly nights.
     Pigsty is a fun book to discuss neatness and cleanliness with the kids at home.  The cartoon like illustrations are full of quirky details (I loved the fact that the initial of the first word in the book was spelled using dirty socks) but are also large enough to share during a read aloud.  Cool book for messy kids and neat parents to share.