I was browsing through the children’s section at my local library. I was looking for some neat books to read to my 3-year-old son, Allen. He loves to be read to and usually I read a book to him every night before bed. The last book we read is called Louanne Pig in the Perfect Family. It was written and illustrated by Nancy Carlson.

About the Story:

The main characters in the book are Louanne, who is a pig and George, who is a rabbit. Louanne is a single child or should I say pig. George and his nine siblings live next door to Louanne. Louanne thinks that having such a big family would be the coolest thing.

Both of Louanne’s parents must be out of town for the weekend. Louanne gets to spend the weekend with George’s family. She sleeps in the room with George’s sisters. Several things happen to make Louanne realize that she is glad that she doesn’t have such a big family after all.

Things were so different at George’s house than her own. An example of one of the many things that upset Louanne reads like this: ”Later Louanne went upstairs to unpack. Her clothes were strewn all over the room, and her bag of jellybeans was nearly empty. “It must have been Nancy,” said George. “She gets into everything. She’s too little to know better”.”

Louanne hurried home as soon as her parents returned. She said that a big family is great for George, but not for her. She decided her Mom and Dad were just perfect for her.

The Illustrations:

There are pictures and reading on each page. The artwork is very nice. There are drawings of many different rabbits and pigs, representing the families of both Louanne and George. There is a drawing for each of the situations that upset Louanne while she was visiting with George’s family. The animals are all wearing cute little outfits.

The drawings show different expressions on the faces. You were able to see happiness, laughter, and a look of being worried. The settings for the drawings are both inside and outside. The outside drawings are of George and Louanne playing. There is a drawing George’s whole family at the dinner table. George's kitchen even has carrots on the wallpaper. The only thing I found odd is that most of the pictures hanging in the house are crooked. I can’t figure out why the illustrator did that. If it was to make you notice I guess it worked because I did.

The drawings have good detail. The clothes, furniture, and wallpaper in the drawings all had different, unique designs. There were things like flowers, hearts, flowers, stripes and plaid. Allen loves animals so he really enjoyed looking at the drawings.

Final Thoughts:

This was a fun book for me to read and a fun book for Allen to listen to. He enjoys most all books though. He listened and looked at the pictures through the whole book. When we got done reading we talked about what the story was about. We talked about how Louanne thought that having lots of brothers and sisters would be great until she actually had to live with other kids. Once she found out what it was really like she realized that her life at home was pretty good.

This is a good lesson for children to learn, especially an only child. Often even adults think that someone else has it better. This book shows children that unless you walk in someone else’s shoes you really don’t know what their life is like. It may not be so great.

While it looked like loads of fun having someone to play with all the time, in truth Louanne found that it could get annoying. Something was always happening to show her just how crazy life could be when there are many children in the family. Some of those things were funny to Allen. He thought it was hilarious when she got all wet after being shot with the water gun. Being the only child didn’t look so bad to her after all.

After we got done discussing the book Allen wanted to "read" it to me. This book was the perfect size for him to hold. It’s not too big or too small. It fit into his little hands and he was able handle the page turning all by himself. He always loves to go back through a book and tell me things from it. I think this is great because it lets me know that he actually learned something from me reading it to him. In one of the drawings he had a fun time counting all of the rabbits. There were rabbits everywhere for him to count.

I think this book would be good for children aged 3-7. It would be a good book for the beginner reader. I noticed at the library that Nancy Carlson has a wide assortment of books that she has written. We are looking forward to reading more of her books.


Recommended: Yes