The Princess and the Pig

Emmett and Bernatene have concocted a pretty much perfect fractured fairy tale, with wry, Thurberesque prose and gorgeously funny digital drawings that both embrace and wink at the genre. Once upon a time, an infant princess and a piglet inadvertently swap places. The princess grows up in a poor but doting family of farmers, matures into a sweet young woman, and ends up marrying a handsome shepherd and living happily ever after. The piglet grows up amid pretentious, clueless royalty and matures into an untamable pink menace that wreaks well-deserved havoc in the castle and is foisted on an unlucky prince. And how do the grownups involved process these events? With the refrain, "It's the sort of thing that happens all the time in books"%E2%80%94which proves that relying on Sleeping Beauty, Thumbelina, The Prince and the Pauper, Puss in Boots, and The Frog Prince for answers is not unlike using the Internet as an unimpeachable source. Just ask the stunned prince, who discovers on the final page that "putting lipstick on a pig" has a whole new meaning. Ages 4%E2%80%938. (Sept.)