Genre: Children’s lit
Medium: Hardcover
Synopsis: A wolf is on the prowl for a good meal, and stumbles upon front row tickets to Swine Lake, featuring lots of good-looking, eatable pigs…
Review: This book is so funny but also makes me cry. So let’s start with the crying part, because that has to do with the production of the book rather than the book itself. James Marshall and Maurice Sendak were gay bffs. They went to the theatre together, and they both supported each other in their changing industry. In 1992, Marshall died and left behind the Swine Lake manuscript. Years later, Sendak decides to illustrate it. And you can even see how Sendak attempts to draw in a similar style to Marshall’s (see: how tiny and close together the characters’ eyes are). The story of how this story came to be is just so sweet and heart-touching that I can’t help but to share it.
Okay, so onto the book. It’s. So. Funny. And well drawn. And so detailed. (My favorite illustration is at the bottom of a page, showing four or five pigs sitting in a row, about to watch the show. One of the pigs is reading a newspaper whose headline is THE STUPIDS DIE, which is the title of one of Marshall’s books–a title that Sendak jokingly can never forgive Marshall for, for being too funny). There’s this beautiful mixture of Sendak/Marshall wit and style, and it’s just absolutely wonderful. As a last book in a career, it’s a wonderful one.
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