Pignapped!: A Cobtown Story [Hardcover]

Julia Van Nutt (Author), Robert Van Nutt (Illustrator)

Book Description

Grade Level: K and up | Series: Cobtown

Missing: One Little Striped Pig!

Oinkey has been pignapped! Three men of science arrive in Cobtown to collect new and rare plants, minerals, and animals. They are eager to take their discoveries back to the big city of Ploomajiggy. But their expedition fails. Humiliated, the scientists leave town, but not before one of them, Dr. Z. Z. Squeers, makes off with an animal that he's determined to display at the Ploomajiggy Museum of Animal History. The animal is Heddy Peggler's wild pig, Oinkey. But Oinkey doesn't go willingly. . . . With no time to lose, Heddy and her friend Fliberty Jibbert take off after Dr. Squeers. Lucky Hart joins them in Ploomajiggy. But what awaits them at the museum is enough to frighten the bravest soul. Will Oinkey regain his freedom? Or will he be forever captive and immortalized in the name of science?

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 2-Determined not to return home empty-handed, three bumbling "Men of Science" steal a wild pig from Cobtown in 1845, intending to stuff and display him in the Ploomajiggy Museum of Animal History. With the help of Fliberty Jibbert and Lucky Hart, the 10-year-old narrator, Oinkey is rescued in the nick of time. The story is preceded by a gratuitous one-page introduction in which a present-day girl and her grandmother retrieve an ancestor's diaries from an attic trunk. Many readers will find this slight story cluttered and overly precious. Busy endpapers are covered with the front pages of the Cobtown Observer and the Ploomajiggy Trumpet and the lengthy text looks like hand-printed journal entries. Scattered illustrations of the different kinds of leaves found in Cobtown further convolute the story. There isn't much plot here, and what little there is does not involve readers. There's a lot to look at, but nothing to remember.
Christine A. Moesch, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Praise for A Cobtown Christmas:

"Only Scrooge could resist this elaborately packaged plum pudding of a picture book."
--The New York Times Book Review
"A rollicking plot with well-researched 19th-century detail. [The] illustrations have an agreeable naive quality, and scrapbook-y touches enhance the authentic [diary] feel."
--Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers (May 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385325592
• ISBN-13: 978-0385325592
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,709,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pignapped--based on a true story, October 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Pignapped!: A Cobtown Story (Hardcover)

Based on the diaries of Lucky Hart, who lived in the 1800s, this zany adventure is an exciting page turner. The detailed illustrations feel like a step back into time. Scientists searching unsuccessfully for rare animal and plant specimens decide to kidnap a rare pet wild pig when the owner refused to sell it. They bring it to a museum to stuff and display it, but luckily Lucky Hart and his friends rescue it just in the nick of time.