Saucy by Cynthia Kadohata illustrated by Marianna Raskin

 Ms. Raskin's illustrations throughout the book are adorable!  She draws pigs well!!

Becca, one of quadruplets, feels like she is the only one in her family who isn't good at something.  When she discovers a piglet in the bushes while on a walk with her family, she realizes that raising a pig could be "her thing".  She names HER pig Saucy and dedicates every part of herself to Saucy's care.  Unfortunately, Saucy destroys many items, expensive items, in their house and . . . she will eventually be six-hundred-pounds.  A local pig sanctuary may be the answer . . .

Their grandmother lives with them and is quite grouchy.  She adds an intersesting dimension to the story. Becca's one brother, Bailey, has cerebral palsey.  Ms. Kadohata integrates his reality so well.  She isn't preachy or didactic about having a special needs child.  

I did not like the conclusions she may leave readers with about farms.  True, her focus is on factory-farms, but my concern is that since most people are not familiar with farms, they may jump to the conclusion that all large farms are run this way.  Most farmers' spend more money and time on their animals' needs, food and housing than their own!  In the notes the author expresses her gratitude an online group of pig owners and PETA.  I wonder, however, if she visited a farm and talked with farmers.  

Points to consider/discuss: In the first chapter Becca is trying to teach herself to meditate.  Meditation was going to be "her thing".  Her one brother, K.C., believes that they are living in a simulation run by aliens.  He questions the meaning of life and whether humans have a free will.  Becca's best friend's  mom is arrested (we never find out why . . .just that she spent five months in jail).  Becca buckles under peer pressue and treats Mackenzie (her best friend) meanly.  Throughout the book Becca is processing her character and how "bad" of a person she is because of how she treated Mackenzie.  At the end it seems like Mackenzie and Jammer, one of Becca's brothers, are beginning a romance (as much as eleven-year-olds can!).   Farms vs factory-run farms.

-Borrowed from the library.