Overview
Early in the morning, down on the farm, a new day was dawning, peaceful and calm . . . until Hen discovers that one of her chicks is stuck in the mud!
How many animals will it take to pull Chick out of the mud?
A fun-packed farmyard romp with a surprise foldout ending!
Synopsis
Early in the morning, down on the farm, a new day was dawning, peaceful and calm . . . until Hen discovers that one of her chicks is stuck in the mud!
How many animals will it take to pull Chick out of the mud?
A fun-packed farmyard romp with a surprise foldout ending!
Publishers Weekly
A hysterical hen is convinced that her beloved chick is meeting his doom in the farmyard's deep, thick mud. After getting stuck herself trying to free him, she enlists the entire farm population to help her; one by one, each gets entrapped in the mud as well. The chain of pullers and pushers grows long enough to require a gatefold spread, at which point the cheeky chick reveals that he was never in any danger: "It's time I got out," he announces. "And with a small plop,/ Chick jumped off the mud/ with a skip and hop." Clarke's predictable rhymes and word choices ("It's purr-fectly easy," says a cat, "I'll soon pull you free") may make presiding adults yearn for Jez Alborough's far punchier mud-as-nemesis tale, Duck in a Truck. But Parsons (Trouble at the Dinosaur Café) assembles a memorably emotive animal cast, and it's a lot of fun to watch this hapless and increasingly chagrined group struggle its way toward a totally unnecessary rescue. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Editorials
Publishers Weekly
A hysterical hen is convinced that her beloved chick is meeting his doom in the farmyard's deep, thick mud. After getting stuck herself trying to free him, she enlists the entire farm population to help her; one by one, each gets entrapped in the mud as well. The chain of pullers and pushers grows long enough to require a gatefold spread, at which point the cheeky chick reveals that he was never in any danger: "It's time I got out," he announces. "And with a small plop,/ Chick jumped off the mud/ with a skip and hop." Clarke's predictable rhymes and word choices ("It's purr-fectly easy," says a cat, "I'll soon pull you free") may make presiding adults yearn for Jez Alborough's far punchier mud-as-nemesis tale, Duck in a Truck. But Parsons (Trouble at the Dinosaur Café) assembles a memorably emotive animal cast, and it's a lot of fun to watch this hapless and increasingly chagrined group struggle its way toward a totally unnecessary rescue. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.School Library Journal
PreS-K- One morning, a hen awakens to find a chick missing from her brood. She spots him in the middle of a patch of "mucky mud," assumes he is trapped, and clucks hysterically until her friends come to help pull him out. One by one, the rescuers also become mired in the muck. Only when the situation looks hopeless does the chick jump effortlessly out of the mud and declare, "...I'm not stuck now and I wasn't stuck then!...thanks for playing with me!" Bright paintings in solid colors and simple, yet expressive cartoon animals are well suited to very young listeners, who will relate to the mischievous chick and his overprotective mom. While rhyme and rhythm are not always intuitive, the repetition of characters pushing, pulling, and becoming stuck is a delightful setup for the book's unexpected ending.-Madeline Walton-Hadlock, San Jose Public Library, CA
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.