Sally’s Children Book 4/8

 Piggybook

By Anthony Browne

Piggybook (1996) is the next story which I chose from Anthony Browne’s body of work. Piggybook is a narrative which tells the story of a family called the Piggotts, who take their mother for granted. Throughout this story the chauvinistic men in the family learn the value of their mother and understand the crucial role she plays in their lives. 

Piggybook follows the standard narrative format as described in Gamble &Yates (2008) by initially having an exposition where the scene is set and the characters are introduced. For example on the first page the family is introduced by stating, ‘Mr Piggott lived with his two sons, Simon and Patrick, in a nice house with a nice garden, and a nice car in the nice garage. Inside the house is his wife’ (Browne 1996, p. 1). This first sentence not only sets the scene and introduces the characters, but it also sets the overall tone for the book by belittling the wife through mentioning her last without even stating her name. This emphasizes the family’s attitude towards the mother and expresses their lack of respect and appreciation for her. This establishes the overall tone for the book through the text structure and what isn’t included in the text, rather than what is included. Browne then follows the exposition with a complication where the characters lives become complicated in some way. In Piggybook this complication refers to when the family arrives home and their mother has gone, leaving only a note which states ‘You are pigs’ (Browne 1996, p. 15). The complication is then followed by a climax, which is the point in a story where the suspense is at its highest. This point in Piggybook is when the boys have been without their mother for days and they begin to question whether she will ever return home. This is then followed by the resolution that provides a solution for the complication, which in the case of Piggybook refers to the mother returning home and being begged by her family to stay. Once she agrees to stay the boys begin to help around the house in order to show their mother that they appreciate her. Browne’s narratives also quite often include a coda, which is a structural element of a narrative that refers the moral of the story.  In Piggybook the coda highlights learning the importance of showing people respect and appreciation, especially your family.

Piggybook relies heavily on the illustrations that Browne has used, as they add depth to the story and provide visual puns and anecdotes which the text alone does not (Winch, Ross Johnston, March, Ljungdahl & Holliday 2010). An example of this is in Piggybook (1996) when the mother leaves, as the father and two sons transform into actual pigs, which is depicted in the illustration but not described in the text. This emphasizes the point Browne is trying to portray in regards to how the family was behaving, by not only comparing them to pigs, but taking it one step further and drawing them as pigs. 

References:

Gamble, N. & Yates, S. 2008, ‘Narrative: Narration and Structure’ in Exploring Children’s Literature, SAGE, pp. 45-77.

Winch, G., Ross Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. 2010, Literacy: Reading, Writing & Children’s Literature, 4^th edn, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 473.