I chose to read this book because I saw it on a Controversial Books list; however, after I read it I was unsure as to what may have been found as controversial in it. After researching a little bit about people's opinions of the book, I found that the conversy lies in that the police men are portrayed as pigs. I do not believe that this is an issue because all the characters in the book are animals. When looking to the meaning of Steig's choice to use pigs to illustrate police officers, I think you need to look at the context and the rest of the story. Because this is a book that mainly focuses on Sylvester and the pebble that grants his wishes, I think that this is a fine book to have in the classroom. If the main characters were humans and the police were pigs, and the storyline was more focused on the police, then I could see it being controversial if this book was in my classroom. I think that the controversy must have stemmed a long time ago, as this probably wouldn't be much of an issue today. There are many, many books that portray different characters as animals and I believe reading these types of books helps widen children's imagination.
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