Zoey the Pig, also known as Old Grandma Zoey, is Bouchie Gouchie Town's cantankerous but lovable 800 pound pig who likes to do things the easy way. Though everything Zoey suggests leads to near disaster, the town's residents for some unfathomable reason get pulled into the schemes of the outrageous pig. Zoey's latest debacle is setting up a 900 telephone advice line for children so Zoey can rake in the easy money so she can have the luxury mudhole of her fondest dreams. Unfortunately, the town's children follow Zoey's advice and misbehave, much to their parents' dismay. One little girl "Sally" mishears Zoey's advice and runs away into the biggest storm in Bouchie Gouchie Town's history. To save the girl, Zoey and her pals square off against Zoey's archrival Old Grandma Skunk and her skunk friends in a hot air balloon battle in the skies filled with mud pies and stink bombs. Zoey just wants to redeem herself while the nasty skunk seeks a big money reward for the rescue. Will Sally be saved?

This classic Romanian novel lends valuable psychological insight into the tragic situation confronting minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I. It is the story of Apostol Bologa, a middle-class Romanian officer serving in the Austro-Hungarian army who undergoes a transformation as his sense of national consciousness awakens, leading him to make a critical choice that many faced during this era. The novel is based on the life of the author's brother, Emil Rebreanu, a Romanian officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, to whom he dedicated The Forest of the Hanged. The novel's protagonist, Bologa undergoes an evolution whereby begins to see beyond class distinction and the veneer of the civilized world. As the hero states, "The soul is the same in the peasant girl as in the countess, at all events in its bare essentials. Only the shape has been changed by civilization." The inner struggles confronted by Bologa as he confronts the savagery and injustice of war are emotionally portrayed by the author.