Synopsis
A chick hatches out of its egg, but who does it belong to?
No one seems to know--
not Goose (Honk!), not Duck (Quack!), not Hen (Cluck!), not Bird (Chirp!). Not even Little Chick (croo? croo?).
But Little Chick's parenrs know, and--as sharp observers will delight in noting--they've been swimming nearby all along.
Children's Literature
A pair of swans leaves their freshly laid egg in the tall grasses at the edge of the pond, prompting the hen and her chicks, the duck and her ducklings, the sparrow and her chicks, and the goose and her goslings to ask, "Whose egg is this?" When the egg suddenly cracks open and a downy gray bird emerges, all of the birds ask, "Whose chick are you?" None of the other birds can answer the question, and neither can the hatchling. But when the mother and father swan return, they surely know to whom the baby belongs, "And Little Chick was very happy." The final double-paged spread shows the chick snuggled up in his mother's feathers under the light of a full moon with father cob cuddling up close to help keep his cygnet warm. Easily recognizable as Nancy Tafuri's characteristic brush pen and watercolor illustrations, the vibrant, full-color illustrations invite young readers in and help them to recognize the different species of birds. While Tafuri names the duck, the goose, and the hen, she refers to what looks most like a white-throated parrow only as "Bird," which seems an odd choice since all four of the animals are birds. Tafuri could have "stretched" readers a bit more by naming the sparrow as well. Even given this weakness, this picture book offers readers a delightful visual experience of nature.