My copy of Pork, featured below, was released in 1983. The artwork is fun, I’m glad I was able to find a copy at my local used bookstore.
I learned about Pork after looking up “humorous fantasy novels,” and I found this recommendation on a Goodreads list.
This book features several short stories about animals that live together, inharmoniously, in a forest. Chapter 1 is called “Pork,” and it’s about an insecure hedgehog that lives in the woods.
Chapter #2 is called “Mon,” about an old and mean owl that eats other owls like a nasty old cannibal. Chapter #3 is about an ugly grey squirrel named Rusalka that searches for true love. All the animals interact with one another off and on throughout the book and team up together at the end to fight a bully crocodile.
This book sounds cute when you read about it, but it’s actually not. It’s not funny, either.
Most of the animal characters were old and they complained about being old constantly in every chapter. Some animals such as Mon the owl and Ug the giant toad complained about having weak muscles and joints. They were all senile and old. Maybe the author was trying to highlight that all predators eventually become old and die—the circle of life—but it was just plain silly.
The front cover blurb for Pork says, “Caution: you are about to enter a dark forest, where animals live, love, fight—and die…”
Upon reading that cover blurb, I thought this book would be a combination of all those things (living, loving, fighting, dying), but the stories were more about death and fighting than about love.
Cris Freddi has also written The Elder (1985) and Pelican Blood (2005).
Has anyone else read this book? I’m interesting in knowing what you thought about it.
Last Updated on February 3, 2026 by Sarah Ann
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