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Hubert the Pudge: A Vegetarian Tale

Henrik Drescher

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Mar 17, 2009 Ronyell rated it liked it

Shelves: animal-books, read-in-2008, henrik-drescher

I have always loved Henrik Drescher’s wacky illustrations in most of his children’s books, so I decided to give this book a shot. “Hubert the Pudge” is a recent children’s book by Henrik Drescher and it is about how a pudge named Hubert escapes from his cruel master, Farmer Jake to live in the forest. After Hubert grows to be twice the size of an elephant, he goes back to Farmer Jake’s farm to rescue his fellow pudges from being eaten.

Alright, it was a bit hard for me to find what I liked about I have always loved Henrik Drescher’s wacky illustrations in most of his children’s books, so I decided to give this book a shot. “Hubert the Pudge” is a recent children’s book by Henrik Drescher and it is about how a pudge named Hubert escapes from his cruel master, Farmer Jake to live in the forest. After Hubert grows to be twice the size of an elephant, he goes back to Farmer Jake’s farm to rescue his fellow pudges from being eaten.

Alright, it was a bit hard for me to find what I liked about this book. I will admit that I did like the way that Henrik Drescher created a creature called a pudge, as the pudges have purple black dotted long horns, have long noses that look like Pinocchio’s nose and have faces that look human but have pig-like bodies. It was also a bit interesting to see the dark side of the meat industry as we get a glimpse into what happens to animals (or pudges in this case) when they are thrown into processing farms. I also did admired the way that Hubert was extremely brave in trying to rescue his friends from Farmer Jake’s processing farm since it truly showed how much he cares about his friends.

Now here is the reason why I gave this book only a three star rating. One of the reasons was that I thought that this book was not as creative as Henrik Drescher’s earlier works. The illustrations lacked the crazy yet colorful feel that made Henrik Drescher’s books extremely out of the ordinary as the characters looked a bit too flat and the colors in this book are mainly in dull colors, making this book seem too boring to read. Also, the story seems a bit too predictable since I have heard a dozen tales, whether it was on TV or through books, where animals escape from their evil owners to find a new life without fear. The story seems to lack a creative flair that were shown in Henrik Drescher’s earlier books like in his book “Simon’s Book” where the plot is about a boy’s adventures inside a drawing or in “Looking for Santa Claus” where a girl rides a cow to find Santa Claus.

To be honest, I do not really know what audience this book was aiming for because while I think some vegetarians might be interested in this book because of the vegetarian theme, it did not feel like a vegetarian book. It is like the book is spending 90% of the time with Hubert escaping from the farm and it felt more like an epic tale than a tale that explains about the healthy and nutritious vegan food, even though they briefly mentioned tofu. All in all, “Hubert the Pudge” might have an interesting take on the food industry, but this book is probably not one of Henrik Drescher’s best books.

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