Pet Pigs in Wartime

Rare is the war story whose target audience is children.  Rarer still is the children’s war story that is told effectively.  From the get-go, such stories provide so many inherent challenges that writers have a lot of reasons to avoid writing them.  War stories for children run the risk of being too sugarcoated to be believable, too bitter for innocence incarnate, or so much a product of fantasy that its relevance to actuality is lost.  The tightrope across these three pitfalls is so fine that it is practically invisible, but in his forgotten though well received The House of Sixty Fathers Meindert Dejong manages to walk it all the while creating an emotionally compelling story surrounding a separated family, a boy’s desperate search to be reunited, and a faithful pet pig, Glory-of-the-Republic (named closely after the boy’s baby sister), that became his family during those dark days of searching.

This last part about the pig makes Dejong’s tightrope crossing all the more challenging, perhaps, in fact, the equivalent of actually crossing a tightrope carrying a pig.  As if writing a war story for children weren’t enough, Dejong decided to make a pig the loyal companion of Tien Pao (the boy).  Not a dog.  Not a cat.  But a pig.  Just the thought of such a thing is at once comical to most Americans, but as dexterously and seriously as Dejong wrote about a child in war the author wrote about a pig in war and the meaningful bond the two shared.

To Tien Pao, Glory-of-the-Republic was family.  “We’ve got to stay together,” Tien Pao repeated over and over again to the pig after being separated from his parents. (33)  Walking along, Tien Pao encountered rampant starvation, still he took all measures in his power to prevent his little pig from being taken for food, including giving away the last of his own food, shoving an old beggar woman, and taking lengthy detours on rougher roads. (43, 110, 123)  Glory-of-the-Republic reciprocated by following Tien Pao even if it meant fast speeds that left the pig “grunting…painfully” or by peacefully agreeing to be confined in a bucket.  (71, 92)

In addition to portraying a meaningful bond between a boy and his pig, Dejong made it clear that he did not view Tien Pao’s and Glory-of-the-Republic’s friendship as a bizarre creature of circumstance.  Dejong also made the case not only for pet-hood status for pigs, but also for the domestication thereof.  Perhaps the most clear evidence of this occurs when the goodhearted American soldiers lodge Tien Pao in their barracks, but insist that the pig sleep in a barrel outside.  Although Tien Pao’s gratitude for the soldiers’ hospitality stays his tongue, he nevertheless thinks, “If only they knew, if only he could make them understand, that a pig could be proper, and that Glory-of-the-Republic was a very proper pig.” (163)  Many a pet pig owner has lamented the same as their local communities have made laws specifically banning these chubby chums from their homes.

The House of Sixty Fathers is a kids’ book of rare quality that is worthy of your time.  Its initial draw for me was the rumored friendship between a boy and a pet pig, but after the first few pages, I realized that its strength as a piece of literature goes far beyond that.  Honest, but not gruesome; somber, but not melodramatic; real, but not raw, Dejong comes close to writing the perfect war story for kids.