Piggy Paints product reviews

This bright covered book caught my kids attention right away when they helped to open up our box of goodies. My five year old and seven year old kept on looking through the box but my four year old grabbed ahold of it and promptly requested that I read it to her, after asking her to give me a minute (and a few 'woe is me' looks from her) I popped her on my lap and we settled in to read it. The cover is nice and simple, with only Piggy and his painting. The illustrations throughout the book manage to be pretty simply yet still full of life and really catch the eye.

My only gripe with this book is that it's really gender neutral till the end when they use the term 'he' when instead they could have skipped that or replaced 'he' with 'Piggy' (which is what I now do when re-reading it). There are a lot of words involving the letters P, G and T which for us, is really really good as due to her condition my daughter cannot form those letters correctly (which may improve after surgery) and so hearing them on repeat is really good for her, and her enjoyment of the book and subsequent attempts at copying the sounds is a big bonus, so I am more than happy to keep reading this book with my daughter.

Piggy Paints is a board book designed for a baby or toddler. It is a simple one line on each page text which my older girls (5 and 6.5 years old) enjoyed because they were able to read it without help. They enjoyed reading it to the toddlers who loved having the big kids read to them.

The cover is bright yellow which appeals to young children. They also commented that the pig was having fun making a mess with the paint. Who doesn't want to hear a story about a mischievous pig? The reality is the pig isn't mischievous but just loves to paint. All the illustrations have plain backgrounds with the focus being on Piggy and his painting. Although Piggy is drawn very simply with no texture he has great facial expressions so you can see that he has his tongue out because he is concentrating so hard on his painting, or a smile of satisfaction at his completed masterpiece.

The one thing I didn't like about this book was the characters were referred to in a babyish way. There is Piggy, froggies and kitty. This is a common thing in babies' books but I have worked with many children that have started school still referring to animals in this way. I have a first birthday party to attend this weekend and I am sure the birthday girl will love this book and her older siblings will enjoy reading it to her.