Chicken Big

Keith Graves' Chicken Big is a farmyard story for 5 year olds about a chick who is far too big for the coop.

What happens

The farm is teeny. The coop is itty-bitty. The hen is very small. And the egg she lays is big and humongous. It shakes. It quakes. Out pops a big, humongous chick.

The other chickens gather round to work out what he is. There are four of them and they are, to be blunt, not very bright.

"It's an elephant!" peeps the smallest chicken.

She's wrong. She keeps being wrong. Next they decide he's a squirrel. Then an umbrella. Then, best of all, a sweater.

And every single time, he's the one who rescues them. An acorn bonks the smallest chicken on the head and they all run for their lives shouting that the sky is falling. He tells them it's an acorn, and actually quite tasty. It rains and they run for their lives again. He holds out a wing and keeps them dry.

The joke is that your reader can see exactly what he is and the chickens can't. Being five and knowing something the grown-ups in the story don't is a very satisfying place to be.

What makes it work out loud is the words. Teeny, itty-bitty, humongous, teensy-weensy. And the four chickens always speak in the same order, crowing, clucking, clucking and peeping, so your reader will be doing all four voices with you before very long.

The big chick's own quiet thoughts are the best bit. "I don't feel like an elephant." "These are not bright chickens." "This is getting ridiculous."

One thing to know about. A fox turns up towards the end, steals every egg in the coop and is about to make himself supper out of them. He's frightened off and no animal is harmed, but if you have a five year old who worries about babies and eggs and foxes, that's the bit to be ready for.

The rest is a big soft-hearted joke about being the odd one out and turning out to be exactly what everybody needed. It's American, so the sweater stays a sweater, which is half the fun of that particular guess.

What to read next

If that's the bit that lands, try a poodle called Pantaloon. He wants a job at the baker's shop, and the baker takes one look at him and says he would eat more than he would bake.