Pigs Might Fly

Gr 4–8—Lily Leanchops, a young pinkish tan hog in the Pigdom Plains, invents the first airplane that can fly without the help of magic. Her innovation comes on the eve of an invasion: warthogs from just beyond the mountains are planning to take over the Pigdom with their airborne armada. Lily can't wait around for her engineer father and the Pigminister Prime to come up with a response, not when every hog is in danger. She takes to the skies in her new plane and fights off a battalion of warthog fighters, who are all varying shades of brown. Her heroics set into motion an adventure that will take her to the center of the warthogs' civilization, bringing her face-to-face with nightmarish evil and the very heavens themselves. This graphic novel evokes Jeff Smith's legendary "Bone" series: pages eschew intricate panel placement and use a three-by-three layout, allowing for more densely packed text and story advancement. The fully realized fantasy realm oscillates between a lighthearted, often pun-filled world parallel to our own and a dark, mysterious place filled with political dysfunction and doomsday tension. The focus on Lily's character development at times steals readers' attention from an imaginative secondary cast filled with mages, inventors, and soldiers; fortunately, the detailed artwork, vivid colors, and soaring action sequences breathe life into each moment of this hefty narrative.