Chicken Butt!

March 30, 2009
Dad is engrossed in the paper, which of course makes him a ripe target for a silliness offensive by his son. “You know what?” says the boy, with a gleam in his eyes worthy of Bart Simpson. “What?” says unsuspecting parent, as a wide-eyed chicken peers around the corner, conspicuously out of place in their living room. “CHICKEN BUTT!” shouts the son, the words plastered on the airborne fowl's expansive backside. An increasingly hysteric call and response ensues, in which Chicken gives a hyper performance, Dad moves from bemused to exasperated and Perl (Ninety-Three in My Family
) manages to rhyme “You know how?” with “chicken eyebrow” and “You know who?” with “chicken tattoo.” Cole (the Katy Duck series), as wryly effervescent as ever, doesn't try to make this story anything more than it is: one of those treasured (by kids at least) moments of parent-child interaction that has no redeeming social value. When he covers a spread with “CHICKEN BUTT!” scrawled a dozen times on top of 18 emotive chickens, it's clear that mania is the message. Ages 3–6.

April 1, 2009
K-Gr 2-On the prefatory pages, a boy meets a chicken while at a newsstand with his father, and it follows him home. Once they are all settled on the couch, the chicken prompts the infamous rhyming conversation between father and son. "'You know what?' 'What?' 'Chicken butt.' 'You know why?' 'Why?' 'Chicken thigh!'" And so it goes. The plot is simplethe conversation escalates until the exasperated father says, "Enough! No more!" But the child continues, giving the story a new twist. Cole's illustrations and the page design work to make this book really enjoyable. The dialogue is written in different fontsthe father's in black in an authoritative typewriter font and the son's in bold red. The father, reading his newspaper, wants nothing more than some peace, while the boy cavorts with the pop-eyed chicken. The illustrations are manic and raucous, and the humor is evident throughout. This book would be fun to read aloud with children in two voices or act out at storytimes and in classrooms. Kids will definitely love it."Susan E. Murray, Glendale Public Library, AZ"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2009
Preschool-K Yes, the title is the answer to You know what? On the next spread the question is, You know why? Forcing the response, Chicken thigh! The classic joke series gets a picture-book treatment here, with a small boy pestering his newspaper-reading father, incessantly demanding attention well past the limits of Dads patience. When the boy is sent to the corner after getting way too excited, he comes up with a new answer to You know what? that doesnt have anything to do with chickens, but doesnt lose the butt part either. Each poultry-based answer is splayed across the relevant bit of a cartoonish chicken, emphasizing the childs exuberant silliness. Adults will easily recognize kids habits of taking a joke and running with it ad nauseam, blithely ignorant that theyve long lost their audience. But, of course, the joker wins out in the end, with a worn-out Dad resignedly sacked out on the couch. More than anything, kids will come away from this boisterous and lighthearted offering with a swell new chicken joke to try out on their parents.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)