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Under a Pig Tree

a History of the Noble Fruit
Jun 17, 2015
A huge "boo-boo" by the publisher has made this potentially boring history about the fig, into a hilarious story about the pig. By replacing each instance of the word "fig" with "pig", not to mention all the illustrations, some rather unusual things occur; early Olympic medals portrayed their image, the best ones hang from the lowest branches, and "Pig Newtons" have those funny wigs. The poor author is in fits, this is not what she intended and she makes sure that we know it, scrawling her displeasure across most of the pages. This can get a bit repetitive because many are just variations of the same sentence. When we reach the page of recipes, her red pencil takes on a new feverish pitch, maxing out with an endpage full of the colour, and ending with drawings of figs as if to say, "how could you mix these two things up!". Adding insult to injury are the post-it notes left by the editor, and their mistakes with the titles in the "also available" section. Many of the illustrations make references to famous works of art, or figures, and because the artist uses a versatile style, he can shift it slightly to capture these images while still maintaining a unified look. This unique picture book will leave kids in fits of laughter.