Review by Booklist Review
Like Laurie Krebs' The Beeman (2008), this book is charmingly illustrated by Cis and offers a lively introduction to the behavior and care of a plentiful species: chickens. Williams' appealing rhymes, which borrow the lilt, if not the cumulative storytelling, of This Is the House That Jack Built, describe how three chickens enjoy life in a girl's fenced-in backyard. Cis' light-filled paintings play with scale while presenting a very hospitable scene, dotted with greenery and activity. Millie keeps busy watching over the chickens and their seven chicks, feeding them, and, at the end of the day, making sure they are safe from the one dangerous element that appears in the book a sneaky, hungry-looking fox on the other side of the fence. Also included are informative summaries on such topics as chicken breeds, chicken anatomy, and parts of an egg as well as directions on how to cook eggs in four different ways.--Nolan, Abby Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-This sweet British import features a rhyming text that highlights various aspects of poultry care. "Here are the chicks,/Hatching out well,/Pecking their way/From inside the shell." Appealing illustrations use loose acrylics with saturated color. Millie's idyllic backyard is filled with plants, a slide, a clothesline, and happily pecking chickens. One of Millie's hens, Silkie, gets lost, but is quickly found with a clutch of eggs, and Millie is kept contentedly busy looking after the chickens and their new baby chicks. Endpapers feature an assortment of heritage breed chickens on a soft blue background. The back matter includes a colorful illustrated glossary and informative text on keeping chickens, chicken anatomy, parts of an egg, and the life cycle of chickens as well as suggestions of different cooking methods for eggs. VERDICT An appealing picture book answer to the question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"-Madigan McGillicuddy, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, Atlanta, GA (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This celebration of suburban chicken farming uses a "Here is..." format. The acrylic-on-paper illustrations' swirling brushstrokes and deep colors are appealingly homey. However, meter and rhyme are awkward ("Here is Silkie, / Friendly and calm, / Happily tucked / Under Millie's arm"), and young readers may be confused (or disturbed) by the non-distinction between eggs that hatch versus eggs to eat. More straightforward information is appended. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In a tale with a warm tone and an instructional bent, a suburban child tenderly tends a rooster, a trio of hens and their hatchlings in her backyard.In verse that suffers due to the overuse of "around" as a rhyming word and end words elsewhere that rhyme only in England (and certain parts of New England), Williams introduces young Millie's small multibreed flock. She describes the girl's daily routines, from feeding and cuddling to gathering eggs, and closes with Millie and her mom enjoying a delicious meal of eggs on buttered toast. This is followed by pages of more specific comments on chicken breeds, anatomy and care, plus recipesjust for cooking the aforementioned eggs (Millie's reasons for keeping a rooster go unexamined). Cis captures the idyllic tone with a small but spacious, neatly kept peaceable kingdom surrounded by a properly high, solid fence. A movable coop and the hopper that Millie fills with corn and grit are the only special items to be seen. Cis' folk-art style results in occasional inconsistencies from page to page and sometimes-peculiar scale. An equally sweet companion to Laurie Krebs and Cis' The Beeman (2008), though young children (and their parents) with a yen to raise poultry for pets or other purposes will be better off with a conventional manual. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
