Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
Posted by: Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan
Lynn: It doesn’t matter if you are a storytime librarian, classroom teacher or sleepy parent – Interrupting Chicken (Candlewick, 2010) will have you matching giggles and gaffaws with your audience. We all know the child in this story. He/she simply cannot listen to a story without bursting in to comment, announce the obvious or shout out the ending. Stein’s disruptive youngster just happens to be a chicken who knows ALL the stories and she cannot contain her energy and knowledge. As her poor Papa tries to read a bedtime story to his exuberant chick, she interrupts every time, shouting out advice to the characters. “Don’t go in! She’s a Witch!” “Don’t panic! It was just an acorn!” Exhausted – and who wouldn’t be – her papa finally asks Chicken to tell HIM a story. The sweet ending is reassuring to all small fry who sometimes nearly pop with impatience during storytime.
Our focus group loved this book and its bright illustrations and they enjoyed predicting which beans Chicken would spill next. I think this book would work well for a story hour as the illustrations are large and clear. It makes a great lap book too as Stein has added lots of small details that make each page entertaining. However you choose to read this, make sure you are prepared for interruptions in the form of lots of giggles.
Cindy: I like this for all the reasons Lynn lists but I also love that the interrupted stories provide incentive for oral storytelling of the familiar stories. The children being read this book can interrupt the reading of this one to complete the stories that little red chicken interrupts. And, if the adult and child need a refresher on the original stories, it’s a not a bad thing for them to be motivated to explore the 398.2 section of their local library. Bonus all around.
October 8th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I second this review! It works so well in a number of ways.