Little Pig

This unsettling tale ambitiously and not entirely successfully sets out to expand picture book norms. At first, the story seems traditional enough: it tells of Mary's pig farm and the birth of Little Pig--``he looked very pretty. . . . She fell in love with Little Pig.'' But ``Mary's Little Lamb'' (as the neighbors call him) is still a pig, and one day Mary treacherously lures him into the slaughterhouse van. That night, Mary has uneasy, guilt-ridden dreams and she metamorphoses into a pig herself, to become the van's latest cargo. Though it hints at such messages as ``do as you would be done by,'' the story's point is unclear; some will find many meanings in this tale, others an empty center. Eidrigevicius's ( Johnny Longnose ) avant-garde photographic illustrations contribute to the story's ambiguity. A black-clad actor wears a series of masks, each an image that comments on the action in a drastically simplified manner. The book is flawed by occasionally turgid phrasing--``His future seemed to vanish altogether from his sight''--and by its own lofty aim at high art status, which will make this book incomprehensible to most children. All ages. (Sept.)