The Pig, the Elephant, and the Wise-Cracking Bird

by Michael Sampson, Bonnie J Johnson, Joshua Sampson (Illustrator)

Meet Ogden Oink, a fun-loving, adventurous, likeable piglet.  He dresses and speaks as humans do, gets into more than his fair share of difficulties because he interprets figurative expressions literally, and he does not understand various meanings of polysemous (i.e., multiple-meaning) words.

A studious-looking, somewhat didactic bird appears throughout near the edges of the pages to add even more figurative language to the story. The "language confusion" humor will get young readers thinking about language-and laughing, too.

40 pages, Hardcover

Published August 8, 2023

About the author

The author of seventeen children's books, as well as three books for teachers and parents, Michael Sampson is the director of the Programs in Reading Education at Texas A&M University. He and Bill Martin Jr wrote many popular books together, including Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? and Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.