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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
May 2006, 240 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2007, 240 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
Buy This Book
From the book jacket: "Christopher
Hogwood came home on my lap in a shoebox. He was a creature who
would prove in many ways to be more human than I am."
– from The Good Good Pig.
A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among
wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt
more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly
opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from
nourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling
that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not
only survive but flourish – and she soon found herself engaged
with her small-town community in ways she had never dreamed
possible. Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic
traveler with something she had sought all her life: an anchor
(eventually weighing 750 pounds) to family and home.
Comment: Animal lovers will adore this true tale, which
is actually much more than the tale of one pig - there's also a
much loved sheepdog named Tess, a flock of opinionated chickens,
colorful neighbors, a dysfunctional family, and more than a few
detours off to foreign places with Sy as she researches her
books on fascinating subjects such as Amazonian pink dolphins,
Costa Rican vampire bats and tigers in the Sundarbans (see the
"BookBrowse Says" attached to
The Hungry Tide for more about the Sundarbans).
The thread that holds this disparate melee together is
Christopher H.
Although a little treacly at times, overall this is a charming
book about a charmingly boorish pig. Fans of Gerald
Durrell and James Herriot, plus any of the multitude who've made
Marley & Me a bestseller are likely to enjoy The Good, Good Pig.
In addition, this could be a good choice for the many
young teenage girls who find that they've grown out of the
animal series books they used to love when they were younger but
are not ready to take on an adult book per se.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in June 2006, and has been updated for the
April 2007 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
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