Book Review of Chicken Big by Kevin Graves

Chicken Big by Kevin Graves

The blurb:
The farm is tiny.
The coop is itsy-bitsy.
The chickens are very small.
But the egg is humongous, and so is the huge yellow fellow who pops out!  This feathered giant is so big, the flock is sure he's no chicken.

The big guy has an equally big heart, however, and longs to be accepted as one of the chickens.  Little by little, his kindness and brave rescue of the flock's eggs prove to the silly chickens that he is really one of them.

Review:
Reading Chicken Big aloud, you start to enjoy the sound of the words:   teeny, itty-bitty, humongous, clucked, enormous, squawked, conked, peeped, splatted, hippopotamus, stomping, teensy-weensy.

It's easy to see how a child hearing and learning the words would get into the rhythm of the book and be captivated by the illustrations of the large, funny looking chick that somehow saves the day.   You don't have to be familiar with the story of Chicken Little to appreciate Chicken Big, but a kid who knows the earlier story will surely find Chicken Big particularly fun.

Great sounds, engaging pictures, and a story about friendship and fitting in -- I highly recommend Chicken Big.

Reading level 4 to 8.
ISBN-10: 0811872378 - Hardcover $16.99
Publisher: Chronicle Books (August 18, 2010), 40 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.


Author:
Kevin Graves is Professor Emeritus at the Chicken School in Austin, Texas where he teaches courses in chicken psychology and chicken history.

Strangely, Professor Graves has the exact same name as another guy who wrote the book Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance, as well as some other ridiculous books, but we doubt that he's the same guy.