When was the last time you spent time in an actual pigpen? For me it was last May, when our store co-hosted an afternoon and evening of delightful fun with authors Sy Montgomery and Howard Mansfield at the Natick Community Organic Farm. (See photo at right, in which a piglet mistakes my pants for dinner.) This is the same farm at which we hosted a Punk Farm on Tour event with Jarrett Krosoczka in October 2007, during which (as you may recall) Jarrett did a reading to three VERY large pigs. (Here’s a photo from that event to refresh your memory.)

What you probably don’t know if you read this blog but don’t often visit our store (for reasons of geography, I hope) is that we host a LOT of children’s author events. It’s rare for them to include barnyard animals, but nevertheless we usually have several children’s book authors and illustrators visiting us every month. Sadly, you don’t often hear about those events here because the events themselves take up so much time (see Monday’s post) that there’s little time left for blogging about them after the fact until so much time has passed that I’ve got piles of events I haven’t blogged about and the task of playing catch up is so daunting that I just… well, pass on it. Which is why you never heard about our Pigapalooza last spring. (Or most of the events we hosted before or since!)

I’d like to make up for at least this ONE oversight here, because this one was the most photogenic event we’ve hosted/sponsored in ages. The good-natured Sy Montgomery and Howard Mansfield drove about two hours down from New Hampshire to join us on the farm for two presentations about Howard’s picture book Hogwood Steps Out: A Good, Good Pig Story and Sy’s memoir The Good, Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood (which is one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books). Both of these books star the same "porcine wonder," as Kate DiCamillo might call him, as does this short video in which you’ll see both footage of the real Christopher Hogwood and the accurate depictions of him created by Barry Moser for Hogwood Steps Out.

When we weren’t enjoying the readings and presentations by Howard and Sy at this event, we savored the joys of the farm itself. For Sy the biggest of these was (what else?) the pigs. With the blessings of our farm friend Jane Harvey, Sy led me and Lee VanKirk, our store’s Event Coordinator, right into the pigpen where we got better acquainted with the farm’s piglets who were (thankfully) much smaller than the pigs Jarrett read to a year ago. 

These piglets were NOT, however, all THAT small anymore. Nor were they slow. Here’s one porker streaking by, which these gang were apt to do until they met with the joys of (dunh, dunh, dunh…) Sy Montgomery’s magical pig touch.

If you’ve read any of Sy’s books you know that the woman has an uncanny way with animals. She connects with them in a way most humans are either unable or unwilling to do. Part of her smarts, though, comes from learning what animals like. And what do pigs like (apart from eating anything edible)? Being rubbed on their bellies, back near their hindquarters. Seriously. It sends them to hog heaven. Here’s Sy demonstrating below:

See the look of calm in that pig’s eyes above? Awww, yeah, baby.

I love the look of serenity on this guy below, who looks as though he’s getting a special pig blessing from Lee.

Here’s Jane Harvey with her niece who is piglet-age herself but much smaller than these porcine peers.

Let me just say that you learn a lot about your coworkers when faced with an opportunity like this one. There are those who wouldn’t dare to get their boots muddy no matter how charming the author leading the charge, and then there are those who are not afraid to get down in the dirt and give a piglet some love. Bless Lee, who always looks so well-put-together you might think she’d be in the former camp, but no. Turns out she can charm barnyard animals with as much sincerity and ease as she does all the authors and customers who come through our doors. See what I mean?

If the noses above do nothing for you, try to resist the one below, which belongs to Sy and Howard’s WONDERFUL dog Sally, who came along to this event.

We had a decent-sized crowd turn out to see Sy and Howard, and we sold a decent number of books. But what stands out in my mind about this event was that it was a genuine thrill to spend time in the company of these two talented people and these MANY good-natured pigs. 

The end!