Hogwash
- author & illustrator: Arthur Geisert "no author website"
- year of publication: 2008
- city of publication: Boston
- publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
- ISBN: 978-0-618-77332-9
Annotation: Illustrations, and no workds, depict the enormous and complicated contraption that Mama Pig uses to get her little piglets clean.
Personal Thoughts:
Anthropomorphic pigs? A desert setting and contraptions from the era of the Dust-bowl? A weird etching illustration style reminiscent of an earlier time? I’ll take it!!
Hogwash is wordless, but it has a lot to say, if the reader slows down and examines the pictures and the silent narrative. See and learn how these clothes wearing pigs stay cool in mud baths the size of Olympic swimming pools. Then witness their bathing process to get them clean, and the strange machinations involved, including windmills, steam engines, copper tubes and magnets, among others.
Author Geisert has put onto page a window to his imagination and Hogwash is fun to look at and wonder why things are presented as they are. Why does this take place in the desert? Why is the machinery all from the 19th and 20th century? How could pigs have created this? It's a fun and silly book with beautiful artwork.
***Artwork - Geisert's artwork is amazing to look at for its antiquated style. It's look is old-timey, with lots of tin shacks, wooden structures and outdated technology. The shading is incredible and the pictures are all hand sketched. If I could describe the style, I'd say it has a "hipster" edge where it's very innocent and childlike, but it is grounded in history and comes from an era where life was hard. I would consider Geisert's illustrations as true "art" in the traditional form. While many picturebooks today have a commercial and polished look to them, Hogwash has an underground quality that kids and adults will be interested in.
***Curricular Connection- 6th grade Art, Mechanical Drawing
6th grade Science, Inventions, Complex Devices
***Lesson Plans - Have students create their own devices like those in the book Hogwash. Use a prompt to get them started, such as, "Create a machine/device that will get your pigs clean", or "Create a machine/device that powers the city for the pigs", etc.
Author Geisert has put onto page a window to his imagination and Hogwash is fun to look at and wonder why things are presented as they are. Why does this take place in the desert? Why is the machinery all from the 19th and 20th century? How could pigs have created this? It's a fun and silly book with beautiful artwork.
***Artwork - Geisert's artwork is amazing to look at for its antiquated style. It's look is old-timey, with lots of tin shacks, wooden structures and outdated technology. The shading is incredible and the pictures are all hand sketched. If I could describe the style, I'd say it has a "hipster" edge where it's very innocent and childlike, but it is grounded in history and comes from an era where life was hard. I would consider Geisert's illustrations as true "art" in the traditional form. While many picturebooks today have a commercial and polished look to them, Hogwash has an underground quality that kids and adults will be interested in.
***Curricular Connection- 6th grade Art, Mechanical Drawing
6th grade Science, Inventions, Complex Devices
***Lesson Plans - Have students create their own devices like those in the book Hogwash. Use a prompt to get them started, such as, "Create a machine/device that will get your pigs clean", or "Create a machine/device that powers the city for the pigs", etc.
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