What This Story Needs is a Bang and a Clang and What This Story Needs is a Vroom and a Zoom by Emma J. Virjan

This week's contributor is Gigi Pagliarulo, a librarian for the Denver Public Library. Gigi is especially interested in youth services, early literacy, and issues of diversity and multiculturalism within children's literature and programming, and has served on the steering committee of Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy.

The wild and be-wigged pig and friends are back for more rhyming, madcap fun in two new titles in Emma J. Virján’s popular Pig in a Wig series. What This Story Needs is a Bang and a Clang and What This Story Needs is a Vroom and a Zoom are both funny, bright, and boisterously illustrated books that have great appeal to kids, with well-placed humor, silly and entertaining subject matter, relatively simple text, and fast-paced plots that motivate new readers to read to the end. However, there are inconsistencies within both titles that could trip up new readers, making for a less than successful reading experience. Thus, while they are deservedly popular and well-reviewed, neither book is a strong contender for the Geisel Award.

For music lovers, noise makers, speed racers, and general silliness aficionados, What This Story Need is a Bang and a Clang and What This Story Needs is a Vroom and a Zoom are the raucous fourth and fifth titles in the series. Bang and a Clang finds the pig in a wig attracting a whole ensemble of animal musicians to come “twang,” “tootle,” and “doom-doom-doom,” until a mouse scares an elephant and hilarious chaos ensues. Vroom and a Zoom also keeps a fast and furious pace as an oversleeping pig dashes to her racecar with seconds to spare before the big race. Naturally there are bumps in the road that lead to a total spin-out, breakdown, and comical pandemonium. Brisk plotting, satisfying rhymes, and colorful, detailed illustrations lead both stories quickly back on track to happy and clever resolutions.

There is certainly much to help new readers in both books; the subject matter is, as the Geisel criteria state, “intriguing and motivational,” and the hyper-saturated, cartoony illustrations are appealing, entertaining, and full of clues for helping readers decode word meanings. There are a limited number of words per page, and sight words are included. The kid-engrossing, giggle-inducing, zany plots of both books certainly create that “page-turning experience” that the Geisel Award Committee is looking for.

A main factor that hinders these books’ utility to early readers is their vocabulary word choices. The Geisel criteria establish that “new words should be added slowly enough to make learning a positive experience” and “words should be repeated to ensure knowledge retention.” While the silly sound words that the books use are easy and fun for adults to breeze through as an entertaining read-aloud, for new readers, they are unfamiliar, can be difficult to sound out, and are frequently irregularly spelled. Both books are peppered with these new and odd words, and without much repetition to help kids build familiarity. This can detract from the positive reading experience when kids try to read these books on their own, and can’t sound out many of the words without help; meaning is lost and so is much of the humor and motivation.

These newest titles in the Pig in a Wig series are as entertaining and appealing as their predecessors, and for that they are valuable and useful within the canon of beginning readers. Unfortunately, many of their difficult and inconsistent vocabulary word choices make these books hard for new readers to truly get through independently, are not in line with Geisel criteria and rule out their consideration as Award contenders.