Harold & Hog Pretend For Real!: Elephant & Piggie Like Reading!
Series
Elephant & Piggie Like Reading!
written and illustrated by
Dan Santat
Edition
Hardcover edition
Publisher
Disney Book Group
Imprint
Disney-Hyperion
ISBN
9781368027168
Awards and Honors
Kirkus Best Books - 2019
SLJ Best Books - 2019
CPL Best Books - 2019
POTENTIALLY SENSITIVE AREAS
None
Hog is careful. Harold is not.
Harold cannot help smiling. Hog can.
Hog worries so that Harold does not have to.
Harold and Hog are best friends. But can Harold and Hog's friendship survive a game of pretending to be Elephant & Piggie?
Full-color illustrations.
POTENTIALLY SENSITIVE AREAS
None
Details
Format
Page Count
64
Trim Size
6 3/4" x 9 1/4"
Dewey
E
AR
1.4: points 0.5
Lexile
270L
Genre
Fiction
Scholastic Reading Counts
0
JLG Release
Sep 2019
Book Genres
Topics
Best friends. Friendship. Imagination. Characters in literature. Elephants. Hogs. Humorous stories.
Standard MARC Records
Download Standard MARC Records
Cover Art
Download Cover Art
Praise & Reviews
Starred or favorable reviews have been received from these periodicals:
The Horn Book Magazine, School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews*, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books*
Praise & Reviews
School Library Journal
Santat and Willems pair up a hilarious installment in the series with a hysterical portrayal of metafiction for kids. Harold and Hog are huge fans of Gerald and Piggie. So much so, they decide to play dress up and pretend to be them. Harold dons glasses, and Hog wears a “Piggie” nose over his own, but it is far more of a challenge when it comes to embodying their personalities. Hog is not as carefree as Piggie, and Harold doesn’t quite understand what it means to be careful like Gerald. This realization is a test of Harold and Hog’s friendship—how can they be best friends like Gerald and Piggie if they can’t be like them? Just as in every Elephant and Piggie book, friendship is tested and readers are led to a satisfying ending. Santat’s detailed art style mirrors Willems’s simplicity, but is distinct enough to let readers know that they are in a different world than his. Willems’s readers will be thrilled at the choices that Santat makes in art and text, subtle and overt. Whether if it’s picking up on the “stage” they create or when a familiar Easter egg is used, all will have readers rolling with laughter. A fun addition for most libraries, perfect for fans of Gerald and Piggie.
Horn Book
Santat takes the already-meta Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! series to new heights of self-awareness in this easy reader starring Harold and Hog, themselves a pachyderm and porcine pair, more realistically drawn than Willems’s. Harold suggests to Hog that they pretend to be Gerald and Piggie. He pops an over-snout pig nose on Hog while he himself dons glasses and tries to act like Gerald—the joke being that Harold, the exuberant one with all the big ideas and who looks like Gerald, is as un-Gerald-like as they come, and that Hog, skeptical and tentative throughout, and who resembles Piggie, is nothing like her. Santat ups the ante in a very Gerald-and-Piggie-ish way as the friends falsely conclude that since “we are NO GOOD at being Elephant and Piggie…WE CANNOT BE BEST FRIENDS!” Amidst the riotousness are welcome messages about appearances, behavior, rela¬tionships, and expectations; and young readers will likely, and satisfyingly, arrive at the right conclusion before the panicky pals do. A not-unexpected but still very clever cameo at the end adds to the fun.
Grades K-1
Emergent Readers Plus
For Grades K-1
Engaging short texts and large type for children who are beginning to read. Books feature familiar vocabulary and natural repetition as well as playful hooks to pull in readers. With artwork and layout designed to enhance comprehension, these books foster pleasurable and successful early reading experience.
14 books per Year
$228.76 per Year
Interests
Beginning Readers,ESL,Fiction,Picture Books,Storytime/Read Alouds
Grades K-1
Emergent Readers Plus
14 books per Year
$228.76 per Year
