The year: 1845. The place: Cobtown, U.S.A. The writer: ten-year-old Lucky Hart, whose vivid diary entries evoke the special place she calls home and the many colorful and endearing folks who share her daily joys, her adventures, her traditions and her boundless American spirit.

Oinkey has been pignapped!

Three men of science arrive in Cobtown to collect new and rare plants, minerals and animals. They are eager to carry all their discoveries back to the big city of Ploomajiggy. But their expedition into dreaded Mineral Gorge fails. Humiliated, the scientists leave town, but not before one of them, Dr. Z. Z. Squeers, makes off with an animal that he's determined to display at the Ploomajiggy Museum of Animal History. The animal is Heddy Peggler's wild pig, Oinkey. But Oinkey doesn't go willingly.

With no time to lose, Heddy and her friend Fliberty Jibbert take off after Dr. Squeers. Lucky Hart joins them in the big city to try to help rescue Cobtown's dearest pig. But what awaits them in Ploomajiggy -- and at the museum -- is enough to frighten the bravest soul. Will Oinkey regain his freedom? Or will he be forever captive, immortalized in the name of science?

Luminous illustrations capture the urgency of Oinkey's plight and of Lucky Hart's heart-stopping adventure.