The Good Good Pig

The Good Good Pig
Ballantine/Random House, 2006

The Good Good Pig

A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from nourish meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not only survive but flourish, and she soon found herself engaged with her small-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler with something she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventually weighing 750 pounds) to family and home.

The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all his glory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural New Hampshire, where his boundless zest for life and his large, loving heart made him absolute monarch over a (mostly) peaceable kingdom. At first his domain included only Sy’s cosseted hens and her beautiful border collie, Tess. Then the neighbors began fetching Christopher home form his unauthorized jaunts, the little girls next door started giving him warm, soapy baths, and the villagers brought him delicious leftovers. His intelligence and fame increased along with his gift, and he was eventually featured in USA Today and on several National Public Radio environmental programs. One election day, some votes even wrote in Christopher on their ballots.

Baby Hogwood
Photo by Sy Montgomery

But as this enchanting book describes, Christopher Hogwood’s influence extended beyond celebrity—for he was, as a friend said, a great big Buddha master. Sy reveals what she and other learned from this generous soul who just so happened to be a pig—lessons about self-acceptance, the meaning of family, the value of community, and the pleasures of the sweet green Earth. The Good Good Pig provides proof that with love, almost anything is possible.


The Undercover Quilters’ series of quilts on Christopher Hogwood

Take a look at a selection of quilts made by readers and shown at a special exhibit at the Sisters’ Outdoor Quilt Show.

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