Winging It: Henny by Elizabeth Rose Stanton

HENNY WAS NOT A TYPICAL CHICKEN.

HENNY WAS BORN WITH ARMS.

SOMETIMES SHE LIKED HAVING ARMS...

But sometimes it was a drag, especially when her arms trailed so far behind her that of necessity she always had to be the last in line behind Mama Hen.

The other barnyard animals were less than kind in their observations about her peculiarity. Even the pigs laughed at her.

On the other hand, she like having hands at the ends of her arms, hands that enabled her to climb trees, while he sibling chicks were still flapping their stubby little wings uselessly. Instead of pecking up bugs on the hoof, Henny could pick up dainty insect morsels with her chopsticks. The possibilities were endless--from hailing a cab downtown to piloting her own plane.

Henny also found that she could lend a hand around the farm. She helped feed the cows, and much to their consternation, milk them, too! She was handy at finding eggs hidden in the henhouse, and once when Mr. Farmer dropped one, Henny just reached up and caught it. Henny was a life-saving hero!

In her first first picture book, Henny (Paula Wiseman Books) (Simon & Schuster, 2014), Elizabeth Rose Stanton has a rather eggs-centric character in Henny, whose eggstraordinarily ambidexterous abilities make for some wry illustrations (Henny checking her armpits to see if she needs deodorant or worrying about hangnails and tennis elbow), even as she daydreams of all the amazing things-- trapeze artist?--that her arms and hands allow her to do.

After all, if pigs can fly, why can't Henny have a manicure?

Chicken Expedition: Big Chickens Fly the Coop by Leslie Helakoski

Illustrator Henry Cole can really draw cartoon chickens--in all their silly, googly-eyed, fearful and frazzled glory--and Leslie Helakoski's new picture book Big Chickens Fly the Coop takes full advantage of his art to tell a tale of some cooped-up hens who finally cure their coop fever.

"We should always stay home,
we should always stay home,
we should always stay home. Except....

We've always wanted to see the farmhouse."

These simpleton explorers have only the vaguest idea of what a farmhouse looks like, but they set off on their trek and immediately come upon a likely prospect for farmhouse-hood.

"Is that a farmhouse?
It has a roof;
It has a door;
It has a... tail?"

This domicile turns out to be a doghouse, of course, and the loud barking of the two doghouse dwellers sends the four chickens into a poultry panic, as they "flounce, trounce, and body-bounce" out of the way.

Back in their hen house haven, the chickens consider staying put, but the desire to see the farmhouse takes over once more, and they approach another large object in their path.

Is that the farmhouse?
It has a chimney.
It has a seat.
It has ...tires?

And it also has a starter, which the hens happen to hit in their investigations, and when the tractor erupts with puffs of dirty black smoke, the hens scritch and hitch and flip-switch their way back to the coop to regroup.

Next the chickens sneak forward and encounter something with a gate, windows, and hay. It's the BARN, where (YIKES!) wild things with hard shoes and whipping manes practically scare their feathers off. But just as the hens' hopes seem hobbled, they realize that their experiences have made them brave:

"Chickens can be loud...
Chickens can be dirty...,
Chickens can be ... wild!"

And besides, their flight from the horrifying horses has landed them right in front of ... THE FARMHOUSE! Not only that, but they suddenly realize that their hen house has been hard by the farmhouse all along!

"They viewed,
shooed,
and woo-hoo-ed...

'Now we can visit the farmhouse anytime we want,' they said,

and strutted...
all the way home."

Helakoski and Cole offer up an egg-cellent example of the virtues of venturesomeness and the joys of sweet silliness in their latest fowl play fantasy.


For more simply silly agricultural absurdity for the board book set, see Sandra Boynton's classics Moo Baa La La La and Barnyard Dance! (Boynton on Board), available in English and Spanish.

Never Say Fry! My Life as a Chicken

Chickens are having a big year! First Dial Books published Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?, reviewed here on April 3, and then Harcourt hatches My Life as a Chicken, a hilarious Perils of Pauline, (that's Pauline Poulet, BTW) professional poultry victim.

Pauline knows eggs: she hatched out of one, you know, and went directly to laying them day after day. However, something (could it be that copy of 101 Chicken Recipes the farmer is studying?) tells her that living to be a tough old stewing hen is not in the cards for her here.

Has Farmer hatched a crafty plan
To throw me in the frying pan?
I'll be his special of the day
At the Cock-a-Doodle-Doo Cafe!
BAWWWK!

Pauline peruses that it's time to fly the coop or as she puts it, "Be plucky or be plucked!" Life is not always serener on the other side of fence, however, as Pauline encounters chicken pickin' foxes, a wild river, and the stormy ocean in her flight. There, double-bawwwk, she's captured by a crew of gleeful pirate cats, themselves lusting for a tasty chicken entree.

Pirates pull me from the foam,
Why, oh why, did I leave home?

Squawking her motto, "Pauline, Prevail!" the hen with chutzpah escapes the pirates via a serendipitous hot-air balloon, only to have a chicken hawk spy her tasty drumsticks and dive, popping the balloon and sending Pauline spinning downward until she snags a passing kite.

I rode the kite, cling and swing,
Weary, wounded, weak of wing.

At last Pauline's pluck is rewarded, and she settles to earth in a place just right--a children's petting zoo where she can be properly celebrated like the princess of poultry she is.

Poet Ellen Kelley's verse is zippy and light as, well, a feather, and floats through Michael Slack's vigorously comic illustrations to keep the story moving to the very satisfying conclusion of Pauline's peregrinations. Kids will cackle for this sunny-side-up tale which definitely doesn't lay an egg!