Christmas Down On The Farm

Mother Nature has frosted our landscape these past few weeks as if it's her own personal Christmas cake.  Animal tracks pattern the lawns, sidewalks, paths and roadways in the early morning hours like silver dragees.  After dark homes and nearby bushes and trees outlined with white or colored lights add to the festive atmosphere.

For nearly three hundred, sixty-five days children around the world have been waiting to welcome Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Saint Nick or Santa Claus while others emulate his spirit as in the reply to a child's letter in 1897, Is There A Santa Claus?  Christmas wishes have been made.  Trees have been trimmed.  Stockings have been hung.  Treats have been left for the visitor about to arrive.

And Duck is up to his old tricks.  Duck?!   Yes, the crew of critters making their home on Farmer Brown's acreage is back in a rollicking read, Click, clack, Ho! Ho! Ho! (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing Division, September 22, 2015) written by Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Betsy Lewin.

Snow is falling.
Lights twinkle.
A few creatures are stirring.
It is Christmas Eve.

Farmer Brown pauses in his holiday preparations to listen to a new noise.  It sounds like Santa Claus is getting closer to his home.  What is Duck doing with spiked sandals, goggles, a rope and backpack?

Hush now!  What's that?  He's getting closer.  Or is he?  Oh, no Duck!  There's something on the roof now.  As Farmer Brown finishes and rushes to bed Duck sneaks at peak at the Christmas Eve sky.  A silhouette crosses the moon.

Of all the unfortunate luck, Duck is stuck.  Yes, the wily fowl has foiled his own plan. First one, then another, and then another get stuck.  That chimney is full of farm friends.  A jolly gentleman and his flying eight wait.

HO! HO!

Happily Christmas magic is in the air and so is a lot of soot.  Not a word is heard as they complete their task.  It's a night of good will toward one man as another leaves with new gear.


Three or four phrases grouped together start this tale of an impending approach.  Doreen Cronin by first focusing on Farmer Brown lulls us into believing one thing with her seasonal celebratory sentences.  As our attention is shifted to Duck and company with repetitive words,

HO! HO! Uh-oh.

the first of several plot twists comes as a total surprise.


When readers initially glance at the matching dust jacket and book case, greeted by a wintry scene, a bit of Christmas cheer with Duck front and center, we're not quite sure if Duck is going to be up to his old tricks or not.  To the left, on the back, on a canvas of joyful green, Duck is lifting the newcomer from Click, Clack, Peep!   I won't reveal any more because it does foreshadow one of the plot twists.  The same joyful hue is found on the opening endpapers with a jolly red on the closing endpapers.  A two page visual spans the verso and title pages with Santa-hat-wearing mice (three) dancing among the title text coming from the chimney top.

The major of the images rendered in watercolor by Betsy Lewin extend edge to edge across two pages.  You can't help but chuckle at her wordless pictures placed between the initial narrative sections before Duck gets stuck.  You will burst out laughing at the body positions and expressions on the other animals as they journey to help Duck and find themselves in the same predicament.

Careful readers will enjoy watching the antics of the three mice.  We know what they know but Farmer Brown has no clue as to the real source of the noises.  The tiny details throughout are telling stories too.

One of my favorite illustrations of many is the first wordless two pages.  On the left Duck, looking every bit like a mountain climber, is making his way up a utility pole.  A large rope extends from the top of the pole to the roof of Farmer Brown's house smaller in the distance on the right.  Numerous questions immediately come to mind along with giggles.


If you are looking for a new Christmas title loaded with catchy comedy and several surprises, Click, Clack, Ho! Ho! Ho! written by Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Betsy Lewin is the book for you.  I had the distinct pleasure to read this to a group of kindergarten students last week on Friday.  I wish you could have heard the laughter and gasps.  Please add this title to your holiday collection and read it often.

By following the links attached to Doreen Cronin's and Betsy Lewin's names you can access their respective websites to learn more about them and their other work.  In addition to the front dust jacket and book case picture, the publisher's website has six more interior illustrations including my favorite. There are two separate links to printable pages of activities.  Have fun and Merry Christmas!

Down On The Farm

If you were to ask your readers how many have ridden on a wagon pulled by a tractor, depending on your location, you might receive a favorable response.  When asked how many have had the pleasure of actually riding on the tractor your numbers will probably diminish.  Factoring in their ages the amount who have actually driven a tractor will be even less.  Having done all three myself, I can say in all honesty, after the third option, with the broken barn door as evidence, I was delegated to the open fields.

Life on a working farm is busy with long days of work; the epitome of there never being a dull moment.  When it's Farmer's Brown's place laughter is a given. Click, Clack, Peep! (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, February 10, 2015), the newest installment in a much-loved series written by Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Betsy Lewin, is a rousing rendition by the famous animal crowd.

Click, Clack, peep!
Farmer Brown stuck his head out the window.
The farm was too quiet.

There is not a sound to be heard because all the critters are gathered around a straw nest.  In the exact center is an egg ready to open.  There's one crack, two cracks, three cracks, four, five, six and seven cracks.  A furry, fuzzy yellow baby duck pops out.

This little duck is so happy to be hatched it laughs, waddles, plays and peeps.  It peeps a lot.  And it keeps on peeping when all the others are yawning.

Each of the animals, the chickens, the cows, and the sheep, draw on their maternal instincts trying without success to get the baby duck to quit peeping and sleep.  They all leave the barn, even the mice, to get much needed rest.  Baby Duck keeps on peeping.

As you are well aware Duck is no ordinary duck.  This Duck always has a plan.  This time it involves earphones, Farmer Brown snoozing in his hammock, a bucket, a blanket and seat belts.  This is one ride you won't want to miss.


The beat began in the barn continues throughout the story with the playful use of words by Doreen Cronin.  Each animal's voice is repeated as are the title words among all those peeps.  Repetition of phrases in different portions of the narrative is a warm welcome for participation.   They are also great building blocks to a hilarious conclusion as only Duck can provide.  Here is another sample passage.

Not a moo.
Not a click.
Not an oink.
Not a clack.
Not a baa.
Not a cluck.
Not a thing.
Then...a crack.


Rendered in watercolor the unmistakable line work of Betsy Lewin is evident from the dust jacket (I'm working with an F & G).  There is liveliness in every brush stroke.  Her full color palette is a reflection of life on the farm no matter the time of day.  On the back, to the left, on a canvas of pale yellow, there appears to be the very tractor I drove in days long past.  Not an inch of space is wasted as Lewin starts the story before the narrative begins with the cows and Duck waiting for a delivery, the truck arriving, and Duck receiving a box tied with a bow.  These are placed on a page before the title page, on the title page, verso and dedication page.

Her image sizes are a mix of single pages, double pages and small vignettes clustered on pages to highlight the text and supply pacing.  At times we view the scene as a whole or we are moved in close for emphasis.  One thing is apparent with every page turn.  The details on the animal faces (and Farmer Brown) are loaded with emotion.  We can't help but burst out laughing.

One of my favorite illustrations is of the chickens singing a lullaby to the baby duck.  One is rocking the little peeper.  Three others with beaks wide open are creating a chorus.  Of the four mice pictured, one is running away and another is plugging its ears.  Two others are looking on with what I am sure is hope.  Lewin uses a purple wash to generate the evening hour.


Click, Clack, Peep! written by Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Betsy Lewin is not to be missed.  Use this for a unit on life on the farm, to demonstrate the art of writing with rhythm, to show how humor is infused in writing or as a bedtime treat.  I think it would make a delightful reader's theater.  I can already hear the voices joining in as words are read aloud.

To learn more about Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin and their other books access their websites by following the links attached to their names.  At Reading Rockets are video interviews of Betsy Lewin.  If you follow this link to the publisher's website you can find some activity sheets. 

Simply Fun

Have you ever noticed how the familiar things you walk by every single day may suddenly get your attention? When you stop and stare you wonder why you never fully appreciated what has currently grabbed your focus.  It may be the slope of snow sculpted by the wind, a tiny bird's nest comfortably resting in the bare branches of a tree, the way a folded blanket drapes across the back of a chair or the new grayness around your dog's face.  There is a special contentment in the simple.

For our youngest readers and listeners learning to appreciate the music of language, a few words can become a melody moving through their minds.  Taking commonplace things and putting them together can create pure playfulness.  Smick! (Viking, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), February 10, 2015) written by Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Juana Medina does this superbly.

Smick.

Having heard his name called, Smick, one ear cocked, is ready for action.  Tail wagging he easily follows the request of the unseen speaker.  He receives phrase with a doggy smile on his face.

One word, the next word, makes him sit up and take notice.  The word is stick.  For reasons unknown to me, dogs love sticks. (I have seen Xena drag sticks three times her size down roads, through fields and out of the water in total bliss.)

With one thought in his mind, he retrieves the thrown stick in mere seconds.  What he hears next is a tad bit unusual.  It sounds like a chicken.  It's a baby, a mere bundle of fluff.  Wow!

When seen side by side (Chick and Smick), it's easy to see Smick is a big dog, a big, big dog.  He's huge! Smick crouches down ready to play but he needs to proceed with care.  When you add Chick, chasing a stick and Smick together you get a rousing romp of goodness.


After I had read this book multiple times, I couldn't help but think about which word came to author Doreen Cronin first, Smick, Chick or stick?  Or what picture popped into her head before the others, was it the dog, the baby chicken or the stick?  Did she see something which sparked the idea for this story?

The most words read in combination are three.  Usually all that appears is a single word.  It's the use of punctuation, a comma, a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point, which determine the rhythm of the narrative.  It's spirited and catchy.


Rendered digitally in combination with alstroemeria petals and rosemary tree sticks the illustrations of Juana Medina are in lively synchronization with the narrative.  The royal blue background spanning the dust jacket and matching book case make Smick and Chick the perfect pals to bring on readers' grins.  On the back, left, we see the back portion of the duo in the same position. The opening and closing endpapers with the identical blue background are a series of nine new poses of Smick and Chick together; upside down, running, resting, walking away from and running toward us.  They are, in two words, utterly charming.  The picture for the title page spreads from left to right featuring the stick in Smick's mouth.  Chick is perched on the tip.

Crisp white pages make Smick, shaped with thicker black lines (and sometimes Chick), the real stick and Chick formed with flower petals seem like they could jump off the pages at any minute.  Medina alters her perspective of Smick, making him smaller or larger in response to the action of the story.  She crosses the gutter with energetic abandon just like Smick.

One of my favorite of many images is when Smick first encounters Chick.  The speaker cries out

No, Smick, no!

Smick is lying down, larger than life on the left spanning over the gutter to the right.  Wings sticking up in the air is Chick calmly walking right by Smick's nose going toward the left edge.  You can feel the gentle tension wondering what the page turn will bring next to readers.


It's easy to understand why the first three letters of the dog's name are the first three letters in smile. That's exactly what readers will be doing from beginning to end of Smick! written by Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Juana Medina.  My gaze was captured by the dog on the cover but the spare rhyming text masterfully combined with the pictures makes this a little treasure for the youngest listeners and readers (and those of us young at heart).  Make sure to read this aloud with zip and zing.

To learn more about Doreen Cronin and Juana Medina please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.  Julie Danielson, author and blogger at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, featured the artwork from this title.  Enjoy the book trailer.




Note to reader:  I am not sure of the gender of Smick so feel free to substitute female pronouns whenever you wish.

Pesky Peepers On Patrol

Given the popularity of mystery books in a series, Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, The 39 Clues, The Sisters Grimm, The Boxcar Children Mysteries, The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories, A Jigsaw Jones Mystery, Cam Jansen, Nate the Great, Chet Gecko, Sammy Keyes and Encyclopedia Brown (to name a few), it's safe to say most children enjoy gathering clues and trying to crack the case.  Over the years with the introduction of a new series, a different group of boys and girls eagerly await the release of the next volume.  With each subsequent title, the bond between the readers and the fictional characters grows.

In 2011 author Doreen Cronin and illustrator Kevin Cornell presented readers with a comic cast in The Trouble with Chickens:  A J. J. Tully Mystery (Balzer + Bray) followed in 2012 with The Legend of Diamond Lil:  A J. J. Tully Mystery (Balzer + Bray).  Retired search-and-rescue dog J. J. Tully, mother chicken Moosh and her four chicks, Dirt, Sugar, Poppy and Sweetie are back in a spin-off from the original series titled The Chicken Squad: The First Misadventure (Atheneum Books for Young Readers).  Those four balls of yellow fluff take center stage in what can only be described as merry mayhem.

Welcome to the yard!
Meet the Chicken Squad: Four fuzzy little chicks who should fill their days pecking chicken feed and chasing bugs but instead spend most of their time looking for trouble and finding it.

The voice of J. J. Tully advises readers of the status of this latest episode before going off to do what he does best---take a little nap.  The quartet, minding their own business in their coop, are startled by the panicked cries and arrival of the local squirrel, Tail.  Something big and scary, enormous and frightening and huge and terrifying is after him.

Taking notes on her notepad Sugar praises Tail on his vocabulary but more information is needed.  When Dirt asks what shape it is so she can draw it on her sketchpad, Tail is at a loss.  Shapes are not his forte.  Awakened by all the fuss, J. J. sticks his head into the coop.  Tail promptly faints dead away.  To complicate matters Moosh walks in, thinking there is a dead squirrel on her living room floor.

With the adults off tending to business the four chicks try to get more information out of the squirrel in between his fainting spells.  Apparently the last fall knocked some sense into him as he is able to add additional facts to the now known shape, a circle.  Between Dirt's drawings and Sugar's notes, a startling conclusion is reached.

Having read this title twice, nearly three times now, at this point in the narrative, the silliness (but logical if you are one of the chicks) is off the scale.  Armed with grass clippings, a bag of rocks, a ball of string, a tank of helium, and an orange balloon the fearless four and one petrified squirrel set out to face their foe.  Let's just say a hose, some hot dogs and a single old shoe figure prominently in the satisfactory resolution to the chicks' first caper.


Doreen Cronin has spun a tale for younger readers loaded with one laughable moment after the other.  You can tell with every sentence how much she enjoys using language to establish a humorous scenario which envelopes the reader.  The individual personalities of the characters shine through in the snappy dialogue.  Here are a couple passages from the book.

How was I supposed to know the twitchy squirrel was going to faint?  I mean, sure, sometimes I chase him around the yard.  Big deal.  You'd do the same thing if you were a dog.  Especially if you were bored out of your mind and had nothing to read.  So yeah, the squirrel took one look at my mug and fainted.

"I hope that's not what I think it is," said Moosh.
"What do you think it is?" asked Dirt.
"A dead squirrel in my living room," she answered.
"The squirrel's not dead, Mom," said Sugar.  "He just fainted."
"How can you be so sure?" asked Moosh.  "He looks dead to me."
"Dead things smell bad," answered Sugar.  "He just smells like squirrel."


When you combine the writing of Doreen Cronin with the illustrations of Kevin Cornell rendered in graphite, watercolor and digital, you have a book guaranteed to produce a profusion of giggles.  I simply can't look at the faces of Dirt, Sugar, Poppy and Sweetie without laughing.  The shapes of their heads and beaks, the placement of their eyes, their head feathers and the huge glasses on Sugar, not to mention their body language, are designed to make readers fall in love with them.  The facial expressions on Tail, the squirrel, are delightfully dramatic.

There are no two pages (well, maybe just two) without an illustration.  They are meticulously placed to amplify the flow of the story.  The size and perspective change according to the narrative.

One of my many favorite illustrations is of Dirt and Tail hiding in the grass.  Wide-eyed and waiting they are discussing their next move in the big plan.  There is so much animation in the illustration you can almost hear their whispered conversation.


If you like to laugh, if you like to hear the laughter of others, especially children, The Chicken Squad:  The First Misadventure written by Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Kevin Cornell is the perfect pick.  You couldn't ask for a more ridiculous romp starring characters you've enjoyed in the two previous books.  This is an easy book to read aloud with voices given the gifted collaboration of Cronin and Cornell.  I can see portions of this tale being used for readers' theater.

To discover more information about the author and illustrator please follow the links embedded in their names above to access their websites.  This link to the publisher's website gives you a peek at several of the pages.  Here is a link to a fun page with a couple of news items and an engaging activity.

Frantic Feathered Folly

The books of  Doreen Cronin are well known to my students and I.  We have chuckled over the exploits of Duck in Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type, Giggle Giggle Quack, Dooby, Dooby, Moo, and Duck For President.  We have poured over her Diary of  Worm, Diary of a Spider and Diary of a Fly trio. 

Introducing a new series for middle readers with the title, The Trouble with Chickens: A J. J. Tully Mystery (Balzer + Bray), Cronin exhibits that she has grown with her readers.  The dry, drool humor found in her previous books is sharper and more prevalent.  With puns abounding readers will find it hard to not snicker and burst out laughing.  She may have looked fluffy and new, but this chick had already learned that life outside the shell was not all it was cracked up to be.

Short, witty chapters introduce readers to Jonathan Joseph Tully (J. J.) a seven year veteran as a search and rescue dog.  His quiet retirement in the country is being interrupted by the pesky presence of a looney chicken named Moosh (Millicent) and her two chicks, Dirt and Sugar (Loo Boo and Peep).  Dialogue is reminiscent of old detective shows on television or in early novels:  I'm  no chicken expert, but something wasn't right.  "Who's missing?" I asked Moosh.  The truth was somewhere between her brain and her beak.  I wasn't sure it would survive the trip.  "Spill it, Moosh," I grunted.  She was getting on my nerves.

Yes, indeed, two more chicks are missing and a note has been delivered.  There is to be a meeting at twilight but best laid plans get twisted as do loyalties.  One surprise links to another as the peeps, their beaky Mom and Vince the Funnel crash, clash and dash with and against our canine detective.  What follows these fouled-up fowl is for the reader to discover as the doggone truth closes this case.

 The black and white drawings of Kevin Cornell  make this slim 100 plus page tale even more engaging.  These illustations interpret each and every facial twitch and corny characteristic of the critters as they crack the case amid screaming, squawking action (and the occasional dog nap).

Will the daring duo of Cronin and Cornell return?  Stay tuned for The Legend of Diamond Lil.