Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Book Review: The Improbable Adventures of Marvelous O'Hara Soapstone

Book Review: The Improbable Adventures of Marrvelous O’Hara Soapstone

Author: Zibby Oneal

Date: 1972

Publisher: Viking

ISBN: none

Length: 128 pages

Illustrations: drawings by Paul Galdone

Quote: “Lemon and Iris Soapstone lived in an ordinary square white house. They raised pigs in the garden.”

Children whose own names are as unusual as Lemon and Iris have to be even more creartive in naming their pets. Hence their white pig’s name is called Marvelous O’Hara. When christened, the pig runs away and starts having comically improbable adventures designed to explain why, in most suburban neighborhoods like the Soapstones’, children are not allowed to raise pigs.

As a Weekly Reader book, this one was intended to amuse middle school students for about a week. It’s recommended to anyone looking for comedy on that level. It doesn’t pretend to be great, but it’s not bad. It would amuse any number of elementary school-aged children if read aloud on a wet day. 

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