Interrupting Chicken

Interrupting Chicken

Written and Illustrated by David Ezra Stein

Published by Candlewick Press

Copyright 2010

40 pages

Fiction

Interrupting Chicken is a book about Chicken and Papa Chicken. Chicken asks Papa Chicken to read her a bedtime story. Papa Chicken reads Chicken different classic stories. She blurts out the endings of one book after another, until Papa comes up with a solution. How does Papa Chicken solve the interrupting?

David Ezra Stein used watercolors, water-soluble crayon, china marker, pen, opaque white ink, and tea to illustrate his book. The colors he used in the book give the book a warm and relaxing feeling, which fits in with the papa chicken reading a bedtime story. The use of primary colors give the story a childlike feel. The illustrations drawn by Chicken will also appeal to children in early elementary school, because the drawings Chicken drew look like drawings by an elementary school student.

This book would be useful in a first or second grade classroom. The book would be too easy for children in higher grades. Interrupting Chicken would be a good book to use for a writing lesson. Students could choose one of the stories Chicken interrupted and write the ending for it. This book could also be used for a science lesson. The teacher could read this book to her students before they start studying about chicken. This book could also be used for a social studies lesson. Students could research the history of storytelling. This book won a Caldecott Honor in 2011.