by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 28, 2010

Glen Rounds was 82 years old when he drew the illustrations for "Hanna's Hog". He lived to be 96, and he collaborated frequently with Jim Aylesworth. Two of their books were about mountain people - including Shenandoah Noah. But in 1988 they teamed up for the story of Hanna Brodie - and the day that her prize hog went missing!

Rounds pens his characaters simply, drawing bold black outlines and then using a solid water-color shading. Hanna wears a blue dress, and has wild scraggly hair. Her pig is painted a cozy yellow, with tiny pig feet and pointy ears. And a neighbor on the mountain has a two-color shading - purple for overalls, and pink for his flannel underwear!

Rounds' simple drawings complement a very simple story. Hanna lives in the mountains, and she calls her pig by yelling '' Soowee! Sooopig!  Soo pig pig pig!" The pig always comes when she calls, and she never has any trouble with it. "As a matter of fact, about the only kind of trouble Hanna did have was the human kind..."

Hanna suspects her neighbor, Kenny, is stealing her chickens. And one day, it's her prize hog that goes missing. He fails to turn up when she calls "Soowee! Sooopig!  Soo pig pig pig!" Hanna searches half the night, but decides to confront Kenny herself.

"You ain't seen her up this way have you?"
"Why no, Hanna. I sure ain't..."

It's the folksy touches which keep this book interesting. Kenny insists "that fellar that was through here last week" said he'd seen signs of a bear, "back yonder in the woods." But then Hanna spots hog tracks - on the ground by Kenny's barn.  So she lurks behind Kenny's outhouse, and plays a trick on him when he goes inside.

She drags a rake across its wooden door, and makes growly bear noises with her throat. Kenny is terrified, and hides in the outhouse all night. Hanna rescues her pig from the barn, and gouges "claw marks" into its wood. "Hanna was so tickled pink to get her hog back, that she laughed right out loud to the moon and danced a little jig..."

And from that day on, Hanna stopped coming up short on chickens...  (Kenny is too scared now to go anywhere near the woods.) "He didn't even go to the outhouse without taking his shotgun." And now Hanna's hog comes running again, every time she calls.

"Soowee! Sooopig!  Soo pig pig pig!"

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