Mercy Watson to the Rescue

Mr and Mrs Watson have a pig called Mercy whom they regard as their daughter. Mercy is interested in exactly one thing, which is hot buttered toast. One night the bed the three of them are sharing falls through the floor, Mercy goes for help, and the rescue that follows is entirely accidental — she was looking for the kitchen.

It is an early chapter book, built for a child who has just stopped needing pictures on every page and is not yet ready to go without them. Chris Van Dusen's illustrations are half the book: glossy, rounded, 1950s-bright, and completely deadpan about a pig in a bed.

The comedy is the gap between what Mercy wants and what everybody decides she meant, and it is played perfectly straight. Six or seven more books follow, all of them the same joke told differently, which is precisely what a new reader wants.