Problem with Chickens

The ladies of Iceland have a problem: the birds lay their eggs in nooks on the sides of steep cliffs, so the ladies have a very difficult time getting any of the eggs for baking. They go to town to buy chickens to lay eggs for them instead. For a while, everyone is happy: there are plenty of eggs to bake plenty of yummy things. But the ladies' problems are far from solved, for the more time the chickens spend with the ladies, the more they begin to act like them too, until eventually they stop laying eggs all together. Now this is a problem indeed, but you can be sure, the clever ladies will find a solution. Full of fun and silliness, this lighthearted tale and vibrant illustrations are a delight.

Publishers Weekly

The subject of McMillan's (Nights of the Pufflings) picture book-perhaps the first ever devoted to interactions between chickens and middle-aged women in an Icelandic village-might seem an uninteresting prospect on the face of it. But the juxtaposition of McMillan's minimal deadpan text (just one or two lines per page) and Icelandic artist Gunnella's comically literal paintings makes for some unlikely hilarity. The author relates the trials of a group of women as they try to secure a reliable supply of eggs. Native birds lay their eggs on inaccessible cliffs, so the female villagers buy chickens instead-but that's only the beginning of their problems. "The chickens forgot they were chickens. They started acting like ladies. When the ladies went to pick blueberries, the chickens went, too.... When the ladies sang to the sheep, the chickens sang, too." Gunnella supplies paintings of buxom, Botero-like women in black dresses, striped aprons and headscarves, shadowed by chickens who mimic them as they drink tea and try dance steps. When the chickens act more human than fowl, the ladies hatch a plan to make the chickens start laying eggs again, involving intensive pullet re-education and a pulley assembly, and both the ladies and the birds grow stronger and more indomitable in the process. Readers young and old will cheer their ingenuity-that is, when they aren't giggling. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Bruce McMillan has written and illustrated more children's books set in Iceland than any other United States author. Going Fishing is his sixth to be set there, and his forty-third overall. He often summers in Iceland, though he lives in Shapleigh, Maine. Bruce holds a B.S. in biology from the University of Maine and has received numerous awards and honors for his children's books.