MennoLink Books and Music

Plain Pig's world is filled with the boisterous barnyard creatures who occupy most Amish farmsteads, but the point of view is always Plain Pig's!

Plain Pig keeps company with Clarence Calf and Hiram Horse. She hopes for a sample of ice cream and she gets within a hoof's reach of Lydia's lunch box. Plain Pig sits in puddles, tunnels through the haymow, and loses herself in mud. But the mishaps are minor. The merry moments prevail!

Pudgy Plain Pig introduces the alphabet by hiding behind objects, each or which begins with a different letter--buggy, fence, milkcan, umbrella, vegetables, etc. She also introduces the Amish--those plain people who live exuberantly satisfying lives. Plain Pig opens a window to the world of buggies and quilts, windmills and washlines, pumpkin patches and zucchini hills.

Benner's watercolors offer a freshly tactile little animal and an engagingly colorful world, plain though it may first appear.

Children will love to follow the activities of the two youngsters through the colorful pages of this charming book--ice skating on a frozen winter pond, visiting a new baby, canning peaches in the summer, baling hay, and going to school.

In spite of her best efforts, Lydia is much more interested in the wagon coming down the road; in the stories granny tells, in stopping at Cousin Lavina's, who is making apple butter; in holding the new baby at Cousin Kate's; and even in chasing Nate's runaway pig.

But, finally, the roses on Lydia's hooked mat are finished.

First published in 1967, this book has more than 20,000 copies in print. Newly edited with fresh cover art by Joy Dunn Keenan and the same endearing inside illustrations by Esther Rose Graber.

On Christmas Day, just before supper, Papa bursts in the door with the news: "Mama's okay. There are three of them!" What is Papa talking about? Life has just handed Virginia a test of faith and caring.

A sequel to Katie and the Lemon Tree.

Copyright 2003.