Somewhere in the Midwest lies a village inhabited by genteel pigs with a flair for civil engineering, their ingenuity documented in many collections of Geisert's (Lights Out
) elaborate hand-colored copperplate etchings. This time, in a series of straight-faced, deftly composed spreads, Geisert shows the village piglets playing in giant mud baths and overturning huge vats of paint. The piglets—nearly a hundred of them—must be scrubbed down, and the community maintains a gigantic machine for just this purpose, an automated assembly that wets, washes and dries them: in short, a hogwash. The etchings have no accompanying text; the pictures contain all the necessary information. Readers will be able to follow the water flowing through a sluice into the immense boiler, half-teapot, half-eggplant, and then into the wooden bathing vat that swishes from side to side (box of powdered detergent controlled by pulley and string from a control tower up top), and watch the pigs ride through the drying apparatus, also wood-fired, and onto the wind-turbine-driven clothesline—er, pigline. Every pipe leads somewhere, and all the technology looks workable. The pigs appear delighted with the whole process. Readers will be, too. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)
