Pete & Pickles

Pete is a perfectly predictable, practical, uncomplicated pig. At least, he was . . . before a runaway circus elephant named Pickles stampeded into his life, needing a friend. Pickles is larger than life and overflowing with imagination. She takes Pete swandiving off Niagara Falls. (Sort of.) And sledding down the Matterhorn. (Sort of.) Pete goes along for the wild ride and actually begins to enjoy himself . . . until Pickles goes too far. And Pete tells her she must leave.

Yet sometimes the simple life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Pulitzer Prize—winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed offers two new irresistible characters and a heartfelt, hilarious look at the rarity of true friendship.

Publishers Weekly

A pig named Pete leads a perfectly predictable and sensible existence until Pickles, the runaway circus elephant, turns it upside-down. Pickles possesses the joie de vivre of Auntie Mame (and the extensive wardrobe to carry it off with élan). She takes Pete swan-diving off Niagara Falls and sledding down the Matterhorn: that both of these activities unfold in places that are a far cry from the actual locales doesn't make them any less exciting to the increasingly game Pete. Breathed (Mars Needs Moms!) writes in that giddy blend of skepticism and romanticism that have made his Pulitzer Prize-winning Bloom County comic strip a must-read-he creates not just a series of funny/tender vignettes but an emotional rollercoaster of a story, complete with a gripping life-or-death climax. Yet it's the digital artwork that's the real grabber. With nods to Hokusai and Hopper, Magritte and film noir, Breathed achieves a dreamy intensity, a sculptural heft that makes these images his most evocative and expansive to date. Ages 3-5. (Oct.)

Berkeley Breathed lives in Montecito, California.