Kate DiCamillo is a crazy genius. Her beautiful lyrical junior fiction novels are nothing short of Amazing. The Tale of Desperaux, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and The Magician's Elephant are all by far some of the best junior fiction out there.
But how could such a wordsmith create an early reader that stands along side such beautiful junior fiction?
Easy, she says, I'll just invent a porcine wonder: Mercy Watson!
Mr And Mrs Watson, own a pet pig, whom they love dearly. Her name is Mercy.
What does Mercy love? Toast with butter on it. A Good deal of butter. It is her diving force. It is what drives her to get help when the Watson's floor is falling in, it is what leads her to capture a thief in the middle of the night, it is what causes her to bring a whole community together.
She really is a porcine wonder, a dear, a darling.
And boy, does Mrs Watson love dealing out the toast with butter on it!
These books are great fun! They made me chuckle constantly and laugh out loud on many occasions. They work well as early chapter books because there is quite a lot of repetition, but that very repetition is half of the humour.
The fact that she is so clearly driven by her stomach, and her love of buttered toast, yet all her actions are misinterpreted as heroically motivated that it is very amusing to see the mismatch between her thoughts and how she is interpreted.
Yes, Kate DiCamillo is truly fantastic. I can't recommend any of her books highly enough!
Chris Van Dusen's illustrations are PERFECT for this series too. Bright, bubbly, slightly retro, fun, and capture the characters brilliantly! They are too good!
Mercy Watson is a porcine wonder. You should get to know her.
Find them on Goodreads:
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