Pig Brains - Dust Jacket

Dust Jacket Explanation

In the title page that I made for 'Pig Brains' there is a pig, dressed as a waiter and chef, holding a purple towel and a silver platter.  In the background I drew a greenish-yellow vomit puddle.  I chose to draw the dust jacket as a cartoon because I thought this story was age-appropriate for 8-12 year olds.  This is because of the type of basic words that were used in the short story, such as "ugly" (48) and "nice" (48).  The first time you look at the dust jacket, the first thing you will notice is the pig, dressed as a chef and waiter, holding a silver platter.  The pig represents the fried brains, which was chosen to be the brains of pigs because Don said they were the "tastiest of all the brains" (49).  On the pig's head is a chef's hat.  The chef's hat represents the cooking process that Don had to go through to fry his fried brains (50-54).  The chef's hat was also chosen to signify the cooking process because it illustrates how imaginative Don was when he was thinking about which ingredients to include.  I believe the hat was perfect to portray this because I made the resemblance to of a chef's hat to a 'thinking cap.'  As an outfit, the pig is wearing a blue suit with a red tie and is holding a purple towel in his left arm and a covered platter in his other hand.  This outfit in the title page represents the process in which Don had to present his snack to the class as a project.  I chose the job of a waiter to symbolize this because the waiter is the person who presents the food to the diner.  I also decided to leave the platter covered because I wanted to leave the audience to ponder about what the brain looks like so they could think of their own gross image of the brain.  I believe the covering of the brain was a fundamental part of the title page because I think that the climatic part of the book, the unveiling of the brain, should be left to be imagined by the audience. Thus, I chose to let the reader imagine the textures and other visual aspects of the fried brain.  An accessory of the outfit is the pig's smile.  In the dust jacket, the pig seems to be overjoyed.  This smile shows the thrilled expression that I pictured Don would have when he saw Doughnut throwing-up in the trash can (56).  The last part of the picture that represents an aspect of the story is the vomit background.  This is a key part in the story as it signifies the eventual triumph of Don over Doughnut.  Since this was such a key part of the story I chose to make it the background so it could be big and wide and take up as much space as possible.  These are the reasons why I chose to make the dust jacket this way.