BookBrowse Reviews The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery

An entrancing true story about a 750 lb pet pig!

From the book jacket: "Christopher Hogwood came home on my lap in a shoebox. He was a creature who would prove in many ways to be more human than I am."
– from The Good Good Pig.

A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from nourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not only survive but flourish – and she soon found herself engaged with her small-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible. Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler with something she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventually weighing 750 pounds) to family and home.

Comment: Animal lovers will adore this true tale, which is actually much more than the tale of one pig - there's also a  much loved sheepdog named Tess, a flock of opinionated chickens, colorful neighbors, a dysfunctional family, and more than a few detours off to foreign places with Sy as she researches her books on fascinating subjects such as Amazonian pink dolphins, Costa Rican vampire bats and tigers in the Sundarbans (see the "BookBrowse Says" attached to The Hungry Tide for more about the Sundarbans).  The thread that holds this disparate melee together is Christopher H. 

Although a little treacly at times, overall this is a charming book about a charmingly boorish pig.  Fans of Gerald Durrell and James Herriot, plus any of the multitude who've made Marley & Me a bestseller are likely to enjoy The Good, Good Pig. 

In addition, this could be a good choice for the many young teenage girls who find that they've grown out of the animal series books they used to love when they were younger but are not ready to take on an adult book per se.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in June 2006, and has been updated for the April 2007 edition. Click here to go to this issue.