Picture Book Review: Interrupting Chicken: Cookies for Breakfast by David Ezra Stein

Image: Candlewick Press

Interrupting Chicken: Cookies for Breakfast by David Ezra Stein. unpgd. Candlewick Press, November, 2021. 9781536207781. (Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.)

Chicken is back, up way too early on a Saturday morning and hungry for cookies for breakfast. Papa just wants to sleep in, but perks up when Chicken announces that she has brought him breakfast in bed! It's cookies. Cookies are not breakfast food!

Denied her wish, Chicken presses for her second wish, to snuggle in Papa's bed and be read a book. Can our irrepressible, interrupting Chicken manage not to interrupt Papa's reading?

   "Papa be nimble, Papa be quick, Papa read to your little chick."

    "That's what I'm planning to do," said Papa.    

    "Well, don't let me stop you," said the little red chicken.

As fans of Interrupting Chicken and Interrupting Chicken: the Elephant of Surprise know, story time with Chicken can be...challenging. True to form, Chicken interrupts every other fairy tale to suggest cookies. So. Much. Fun!

The illustrations continue to delight and surprise. Scenes in Papa and Chicken's cozy house are textured and filled with warm colors and sweet details, like a stuffed elephant on the floor of the kitchen. Scenes from the book of nursery rhymes are washed out pastel hues, except where Chicken bursts on the scene with her edited rhymes. 

Interrupting Chicken: Cookies for Breakfast is a must-purchase for all libraries serving young readers. Sure to be a story time hit.

Picture Book Review: This Book is Gray by Lindsay Ward

Image: lindsaymward

This Book is Gray by Lindsay Ward. Unpgd. Two Lion/ Amazon Publishing, December 1, 2019. 97811542043403. (Review of finished copy courtesy of Blue Slip Media.)

If you are a person who skips the end-pages, dedication and title pages, stop right now! You absolutely must not. This book is adorbs as Lindsay Ward's books are wont to be. The primary and secondary colors are busy drawing a rainbow. Even Black and White have jobs drawing clouds. Poor gray is stuck on the sidelines. He moans, "They never let me color!" on the dedication page. On the title page, he resolves to "show them!" And so, he sets out to write and illustrate his own book, "the grayest book ever!" It is perfect until the primary colors get into the act. Blue asks, "Dude, where's all the color?" Soon, the secondary colors chime in. Poor Gray!

The dialogue is filled with puns, word-play and the familiar cadence of playground oneupmanship. The text does double-duty as readers learn color theory as well as inclusion. Astute readers will notice the entrance of Brown and may wonder where he fits in. Brown is neither primary, secondary nor achromatic, but a composite color. This is not noted and gives curious readers the opportunity to look it up. This Book is Gray would be a great introduction to color theory for elementary art teachers. 

The closing end-pages jar a bit visually. Part of both of the end-page is cut off by the flaps. Young readers will want to spread open the flaps to take in the full spread. It's going to be tough for librarians to tape down those covers! #librarianwoes. The front and back flap cover a third of each of the end-page.

This Book is Gray is a fun addition to any elementary, home or public library. Check out this terrific review at Babiestobookworms for great connecting activities to try with your students!

Lindsay Ward is the creator of the Dexter T. Rexter series as well as Brobarians, Rosco vs. the Baby, and The Importance of Being 3. Her book Please Bring Balloons was also made into a play. Lindsay lives in Peninsula, Ohio, with her family. Gray is one of her favorite colors. Learn more about her online at www.lindsaymward.com.


Twitter: @lindsaymward

Picture Book Review: Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise by David Ezra Stein

Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise by David Ezra Stein. unpgd. Candlewick Press, September, 2018. (Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.)

Our irrepressible interrupting chicken is back and her patient papa continues to stoically submit to his little chick's insistence that the literary term is not the element of surprise, but the elephant of surprise. Papa tries to prove her wrong by whipping out a book of fairy tales and dang, if that pesky elephant doesn't show up every time! Even when he resorts to making up his own story, interrupting chicken illustrates and gets that elephant of surprise to show up!

Fans of the first book, Interrupting Chicken, which won a Caldecott Honor, will be tickled to revisit chicken and her papa. Fans who find this one will demand the first. And deservedly so. In fact, I needed to run over to the library to borrow Interrupting Chicken!

Again, the mixed media art shines here. The colors are warm and there's plenty of detail to catch the eye, such as the school bus viewed through the window of the living room. The textures are inviting as well. One can see crayon markings as well as colored pencil strokes. Papa, as caregiver continues to dote and seems to have an after-school routine. He leaves his computer to devote his entire attention to chicken. Alas, his attempts at gentle correction fall on deaf ears and he attempts to prove it with a story. 

The art for the "storybook" parts is different, seeming to be pen and ink, but the background contains interesting details for young eagle eyed readers/ listeners.

Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise is a #nevertoooldforpicturebooks picture book. It can be shared with older students as a playful introduction to the literary device and younger students will hoot with glee over chicken's exuberant free spirit. She's definitely an outside-the-box thinker. Highly recommended for everyone young and old. 

Here's a link to an adorable trailer.

Picture Book Review: The Bear Who Wasn't There by LeUyen Pham

The Bear Who Wasn't There by Le Uyen Pham. unpgd. Roaring Brook Press, November, 2016. 9781596439702. (Review from finished copy borrowed from public library)

When I glimpsed this on display at my local library, I thought it was a remake of The Bear That Wasn't.* Turns out this delightful little romp is something entirely different.

This book is supposed to be about a bear only, he doesn't show up. An opportunistic mallard pops up everywhere from the cover to the front jacket to the final end page to dis the bear and to promote himself and his own book, The Duck Who Showed Up.

HILARIOUS! This is one you will have so much fun reading aloud and you won't mind reading it again when your audience begs for an encore, or two or three.

A variety of animals comment on whether or not the bear is here, has been here, or will be here. There are clues. Brown footprints seem to indicate that there is a bear. Duck insists that bears are unreliable. There's also an "anonymouse" prankster who points the way to where the bear surely will be. Build in some wait-time as your audience will need some time to roll on the floor laughing.

There's wordplay and visual humor. The author is even dragged reluctantly into the story. This is a barrel of mixed-media, metafictive fun! The ending happens on the final end-page and folks who borrow the book from a library that decides to tape the cover firmly in place will have trouble viewing the resolution and final joke. 

The Bear Who Wasn't There is a great addition to most collections and will sure to be a read aloud favorite.

*The Bear That Wasn't by Frank Tashlin, a satire written in 1946.

How This Book Was Made by Mac Barnett

How This Books Was Made by Mac Barnett. Illustrated by Adam Rex. unpgd. Disney-Hyperion, September 6, 2016. 9781423152200. (Review from finished copy courtesy of publisher)

I've hosted quite a few authors over the years. Most come to us for free for an hour while on tour promoting a new book, a few have been hired for the day to deliver large group presentations and small group writing workshops. One valuable takeaway for students next to seeing a real live author, is learning from each and every one of them that even professional authors are not immune to the often painful process of revising and revising and revising. I will never forget the reaction my students had to the slide Kenneth Oppel showed of a four or five foot high stack of revisions for This Dark Endeavor. 

Can't host an author? The next best thing is grabbing this book! Metafiction at its very best, How This Book Was Made is a hoot! Let's start with that cover! What a mess! Adam Rex is holding the letter E and Mac Barnett is holding the letter M, but a tiger is front and center, looking askance at a hamburger. Astronauts float up top. There are rainbow and masking tape and lots of cut paper scraps. Ask your students, "What's up with that?"

Endpapers = tiger fur. 

Don't miss the front jacket flap. Hyperbole? Hook?

Use the title page as a geography lesson.

Of course the book began with an idea. "Ideas can come at funny times." Yes, they can and the tiger is a great example of metaphor.

Once Mac's idea was born, he went to a quiet place and wrote. And wrote and wrote.  He wrote 12 drafts! And still the tiger was not done with him.

Oh how I laughed and laughed at the pages depicting Mac's editor wearing a tiara and lunching on the terrace of a fancy New York City skyscraper! 

Don't miss the chance to teach allusion with the lines, "I love this! This is perfect! Now, here are all the things you have to change."

"I took some of her advice. And I ignored some of her advice." Kids will really relate to that. The following pages chronicle the back and forth between editor and author "until most of the United States of America was crossed out."

Once both Mac and his editor loved all his words, enter Adam Rex, the illustrator. He worked very (hilariously) hard while poor Mac sat around and waited and grew a long beard. Once the art was done, the book needed to be printed. It was not printed in the United States. It was sent to Malaysia. We take a detour into space, get waylaid by pirates, deal with an eagle who tries to feed the book to her chicks, who reject it. Then, a toad uses it for cover only to have it picked up by a dog who brought it to his owner, who lost it in a poker game, who...

Looking for a fun, metafictive read-aloud to hammer home some language arts (or art or geography) lessons in a fun, palatable way? Look no further than How This Book Was Made. Your students will love you for it. Highly recommended for all ages. #nevertoooldforpicturebooks!

Want other metafiction treats? Try:

Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett & Adam Rex
Let Me Finish by Minh Le
Frankencrayon by Michael Hall
The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak
Open This Little Book by Jesse Klausmeier

The End (Almost) by Jim Benton

The End (Almost) by Jim Benton. unpgd. Scholastic Inc., February, 2014. 9780545177313.

Jim Benton jumps onto the metafiction bandwagon with this bit of fluffy fun. A blobby, blue bear named Donut burps. The end. But wait, Donut isn't ready to have his story end. He argues, cajoles, departs, sneaks back. All to no avail as the narrator is firm. There is no more story. Finally, Donut is invited to read the story again.

The graphic above does not do the book justice as the yellow screams, look at me! The Donut-blue endpages feature multiple Donuts in a variety of disguises. I have no clue why the title page features a talking ice cream cone who makes one more appearance on the last page. Donut is appealing in a role that is derivative of Pigeon. But one can't help feeling that this has been done before. If this is a child's first foray into metafiction, the reader might hear, "Again." If the reader puts on the ham, fun will be had. If either have had any experience with Pigeon, the response might be lukewarm.