Stage Flight Fright: Bawk & Roll by Tammi Sauer

Elvis Poultry lowered his shades. "C'mon, chicks! Let's roll!"

Their first stop on the tour is McDoodle's Barnyard.

Elvis Poultry and the Chicken Dancers took the stage. The lights went down. The barnyard went wild.

"WOAH!" said Lola. "We don't know anyone!"

The chickens trembled. They fanned their wattles.

They ... fainted!

These hot, hard-rockin' hens have passed their audition, but their first appearance on tour lays an egg. Their gig at McDoodle's is a dud.

The Chicken Dancers psych themselves up to do better at their next venue by agreeing to visualize the fans in their underwear. But stage fright freezes these hot fryers again. The Daily Cluck's headline crows:

CHICKEN DANCERS CHICKEN OUT

Marge and Lola try everything they can come up with to revive their pluck. Elvis tries to take the spotlight off them by having them all parachute onto the stage, but the chickens' entrance is a crash landing.

The hens try relaxation techniques--painting, bubble baths, hypnotism, yoga meditation, even knitting--but all to no avail. Stage fright threatens to send these hot chicks back to the freezer. Elvis gives them one last chance--a booking at Dale's Dairy Farm-or they'll soon be backing up the cock-a-doodle boys in their own coop.

And then Marge and Lois bird-brainstorm up an idea that might just save their act. The chickens cross the road--to post a special delivery letter back to their feathered friends. Will their plan work?

The Chicken Dancers are ditzy as they peer through the curtains. The house lights reveals a tough crowd of hefty Holsteins.

"This doesn't look good," said Lois. "We're going to get moooo-ed."

But in that cow crowd the Chicken Dancers hear some familiar voices from home cheering them on.

"They got our letter!" whispered Lola.

"HEY, DALE'S DAIRY FARM! LET'S SEE YOUR MOOOOOOVES!"

In their long-awaited return engagement, Tammi Sauer's and Dan Santat's Bawk & Roll (Chicken Dance) (Sterling, 2012), those high-stepping hens back up their rockin' rooster at last in a rousing sequel to their opener, Chicken Dance (Sterling Books) (see my review here) in another poultry parody that will definitely crack up the kids. Sauer's puns are sharp as a beak, and Santat's visual wit is well tuned in this hard-boiled rockin' tale.

"Another tongue-in-beak tale from Sauer and Santat," cackles School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews crows, "This flock rocks!"

The Panic of '09: Chicken Little by Rebecca and Ed Emberley

BONK!

EEP! Chicken Little may not be the brightest chicken in the coop, but he knows a leading indicator when he sees one. And when that acorn bonks him on the head, he makes a prediction:

"Oh, my goodness, oh, my gracious," he exclaimed. "The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Run for your lives!" He grabbed his umbrella and ran out into the world without much of a plan.

On his way to wherever he is running, Chicken Little meets up with the usual suspects--Henny Penny, Lucky Ducky, Loosey Goosey, and Turkey Lurkey, who panic when a downturn in the acorn crop finds its mark on their noggins, too. ACK! ONK! OOP!

No time to explain! Run for your lives!

But the world is a perilous place for poultry without a plan, and as the barnyard fowl scramble to park their assets in a safe haven, they meet up with the man with a plan--Foxy Loxy, who offers a shelter for the panicked poultry:

"Step into this warm, dark cave where the sky cannot fall on you!" Fox offers, opening his toothy jaws wide, and the easily fooled fowl rush inside. Once within Foxy Loxy, however, even these bird brains begin to see the downside of the inside:

"Pheeeeew!" squawked the hen. "It stinks in here."

"And the floor is squishy and wet!" quacked the duck.

"UH OH!" gobbled the turkey. "Oh, no!" honked the goose.

But with their feathers ruffled and their down dislodged, the barnyard birds soon trigger a reaction within Foxy Loxy. "AAHHH! AAHHH! AAHHH!" he struggles, stifling a sneeze. Then, at last, comes the fortunate (for the fowl) rebound.

"CHOOOOOOOO!!!!"

And with that super sneeze, out pop the poultry and at last they have a plan--RUN AWAY! And the last thing we see are the backsides of Chicken Little, Henny Penny, Lucky Ducky, Loosey Goosey, and Turkey Lurkey, flocking back to their well regulated barnyard.

It's hard not to see this traditional tale as a parable of the present panic, but in truth it is a masterful and faithful reworking of the familiar folktale, made gloriously silly and gloriously vivid in Rebecca and Ed Emberley's stunning new version, Chicken Little (Roaring Brook Press, 2009). Caldecott winner Ed Emberley (for the classic Drummer Hoff), in consort with his daughter Rebecca, creates some of his most winning illustrations ever--highly stylized and yet totally true to the essence of the foolish fowl in this story. Emberley has always had a unique way with color and shape, and in this retelling, his line, media, and use of color come together masterfully. This highly visual version of the familiar folktale struts its stuff across the pages with an authority which makes it, of all the fine reworkings of this story out there, the just-right rendition for these times.

Advhenture: Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo and Harry Bliss

Newbery Medal and Honor Award winner Kate DiCamillo (for The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread (Tale of Despereaux) and Because of Winn-Dixie ) takes advantage of the skills of her illustrator, Harry Bliss, whose depictions of poultry have always been Bliss-ful, to share three adventures of her feathered heroine. A chicken she may be, but chicken she is definitely not.

Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken begins with the intrepid Louise making tracks away from the chicken yard as her mistress is busy hanging out the wash. In Chapter I, Louise at Sea, Louise has scarcely sneaked aboard a sailing ship, the sea wind ruffling her feathers, when the ship is boarded by bloodthirsty (not to mention chicken-eating) pirates. Her captor votes for fricassee, but while the crew argues over whether to fry or stew poor LouLou, a sudden storm sinks the ship with all aboard. All but the buoyant Louise, that is, who pilots a broken spar to shore, where she happily hustles back to her safe coop and her cubby with Louise over the door.

A night in the nest gives Louise some rest but fails to staunch her zest for adventure. In Chapter II, Louise Up High, the circus comes to town and Louise follows the bright lights straight to the ringmaster, where she auditions for a role in one of the rings. The ringmaster is unimpressed with Louise's wing flapping, clucking, and strutting, but Mitzi the aerialist sees some talent there.

"But, mon cheri," she said, "look at how she moves. She is meant, of course, to be on the high wire."

Naturally, Louise is unflappable on the high wire, but one day, when the wire fails, she finds herself dropping straight toward the wide and waiting jaws of the circus lion. Doing her best imitation of a flying chicken, Louise flaps just out of his reach to hide under a clown's hat. Declining a job upgrade as the death-defying poulet propelled from a cannon, she hightails it back to her spectacularly lion-free hen house on the farm for a little chicken R and R.

But Louise's adventures are not done. In Chapter III, Louise Unbored, the hopeful hen travels to a far-east bazaar, where a fortune teller foretells a "dark stranger" in Louise's future. When the dark stranger appears and snatches her high in the air, Louise is sure she's found true adventure, but alas, what she has found is captivity in a wire cage with a bunch of other dumb clucks. Resourcefully, Louise studies the cage's lock and set to work picking it. Finally, at dusk the door swings open.

"We are free," said Louise to the other chickens. The news appeared to stun them. "Free," said Louise again. She hopped to the ground and gestured to them to follow.... Suddenly Louise felt a wave of longing for the hen house.

After a long westerly journey, Louise arrives back home.

"Oh, Louise, where have you been?" said her friend Monique, and Louise looked at her.

"I'll tell you" she said. And she did.

Bliss's illustrations flesh out DiCamillo's wry text with perfect attention to detail as we see Louise motoring up the Congo aboard the African Queen and holding forth for her audience of rapt pigs, cows, and poultry back home. There is plenty to discover on each page as the heroine hen lives her dreams of high adventure.