Pig on the Titanic: A True Story!

This must have been a difficult kids' book to write, and it is a difficult book to review. The book covers an interesting side story to the Titanic's 1912 sinking, in which over 1500 people were killed out of a total of over 2,200. How do you write about such a tragedy for children? Author Crew tells the story through the first person narrative of a toy musical pig, named "Maxixe" by her owner, passenger Edith Rosenbaum. At first, I thought it was a real pig. My confusion is echoed in the book, where the toy pig is mistaken for a baby by one of the sailors rescuing the passengers. HE throws the pig into a lifeboat, and Rosenbaum follows, both toy pig and owner survive. The highpoint of the story is the pig's musical comforting of the frightened children who are also in the lifeboat: "...THE children, they are so cold and frightened. They need your help. If I wind up your tail, can you still play your song?" "Oui oui! It's me , Maxixe. Of course I can play. So Edith wound up my tail. Round and round it went...First I saw a little smile. Then I heard a giggle. My song had made the children laugh!" Edith and the children are shown leaving the rescue ship with big smiles on their faces, due to Maxixe playing music for them all night long. While the author duly notes (in a small-fonted "author's note" after the story) the casualties, especially in families (and sometimes as a result of a chosen sacrifice), there is an incongruity between the pig's narrative and the scope of the tragedy. Bruce Whatley's magnificent illustrations include some frightened and sad faces, symbols of the larger and more pervasive emotions on the sinking ship. However, the text seems entirely too matter-of-fact about the disaster. It's difficult to produce non-sentimental and sufficiently realistic description of the tragedy without overwhelming the young audience. The book mostly succeeds, chiefly through illustrator Whatley's close-ups, but the story doesn't seem to capture the enormity of the disaster, and the "happy" scene depicted on the last page is especially off base. Still, this is a daring and original attempt at telling the Titanic story for youngsters. The pig-point-of-view, the richly-colored pictures of the Titanic as it sails, the darkened, dramatic close-ups as it sinks (children are spared the sight of the ship actually going down), and the "author's note" --for those old enough to read it--make this an appropriate starting point for talks about tragedy and smalls acts of comfort and heroism. It's too bad that the publishers don't show very much in the "look inside this book" feature on this page, it would help give potential buyers a much better idea of whether this story is ok for the intended audience.

Most Titanic aficionados are familiar with the story of the escape of fashion reporter Edith Rosenbaum (later Russell) from the sinking ship carrying her good luck token -- a French music box in the shape of a pig. Well, the little fur-covered porcelain companion that saved Edith's life, and calmed the cries of the children in her lifeboat as Titanic sank, now has a tale as well as a tune to share. Gary Crew, the Australian writer who penned the 32-page children's picture book, "Pig on the Titanic" (Harper-Collins, $10.99) may or may not have known that it was Edith Russell's dying wish to have her story published as a children's book. In her later years she peddled the idea to publishers large and small and it was a great disappointment to her that none were interested. Edith never had kids of her own but she was aware of the magical resonance of the simple tale of "Maxixe" (pronounced "Masheesh"). That's what she called her celebrated toy, naming it after the title of the ragtime song it played. Edith died in 1975, aged 95, but Maxixe is still around, greeting visitors from a display case at the Greenwich Maritime Museum in London. Now part of the archive's Walter Lord Collection, Edith had bequeathed the historic teasure to the author of "A Night to Remember," and it remained with him until his own passing in 2002. Maxixe's story is sweet and largely true, although artistic license is employed by Crew as well as the book's excellent illustrator, fellow Aussie, Bruce Whatley. This tack is forgivable, given the whimsical central character, and the poignant way young readers are introduced to the reality of a tragic world event. The book is beautifully written and produced and will no doubt fascinate the little ones. It will also charm older children, even kids who are much older! Thirty years after Edith Russell's death, the little musical critter that brought her international fame, finally tells its own story. Edith would be proud.