SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Fusenews
  • Reviews
  • Librarian Previews
  • Best Books
    • Top 100
    • Best Books of 2022
    • Best Books of 2021
    • Best Books of 2020
    • Best Books of 2019
    • Best Books of 2018
    • Best Books of 2017
    • Best Books of 2016
    • Best Books of 2015
    • Best Books of 2014
    • Best Books of 2013
  • Fuse 8 n’ Kate
  • Videos
  • Press Release Fun

April 13, 2011 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: Blue Chicken by Deborah Freedman

April 13, 2011 by Betsy Bird   3 comments

Blue Chicken
By Deborah Freedman
Viking (an imprint of Penguin)
$15.99
ISBN: 978-0-670-01293-0
Ages 4-8
On shelves September 15th

Call it barnyard self-actualization. Too heavy an idea for a picture book? Fine. How about breaking down the barn’s fourth wall? Or nine barnyard characters in search of an illustrator? However you want to couch it, I think we can probably state for the record that by this point any picture book that shows drawn characters taking on a life of their own is fairly par for the course. It’s not a particularly new or shocking idea. Mischievous chickens are also par for the course. No one can be all THAT surprised by their antics. That said, though these are ideas that make it into children’s books from time to time, until now I’ve not seen anyone specifically combine the two into a single book. Blue Chicken turns out to be the natural descendant of these two notions. Part barnyard antics, part surreal adventure, Deborah Freedman at last returns with a picture book that uses a minimum of words to create for us a fairly complex notion.

On a rainy day on a desk in a home sits an unfinished painting of a sleepy barnyard scene. Curious, one of the chickens in the picture notices the nearby jars of paint just outside of the frame. Unfortunately for her, this natural curiosity leads to an unprecedented spill that threatens to cover every animal in the picture. The ducklings are fairly cool about it, but the other creatures are distinctly displeased. In her effort to make things right, the chicken comes across a clear liquid that manages to wipe out all the unwanted blue except in the sky above. Content, the animals settle down back again. Only the final image in the book suggests where the chicken might be poking her nosy little beak next.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Now normally when drawn characters take their lives into their own hands, the story makes it very clear that these are characters in a book, breaking free of the shackles of the printed page. What’s interesting about Deborah Freedman’s book is that she prefers to imagine worlds where people do the drawing, coloring, and painting. In her previous book, Scribble, the drawings of two little girls come to life and get a little wild across the page. Likewise, in Blue Chicken it’s a drawing on a barnyard that contains all the requisite characters. Freedman isn’t tempted to challenge the very notion of reading a book like David Wiesner did in The Three Pigs or Mordecai Gerstein in A Book. Her interest seems more focused on what our imagination’s characters are capable of, rather than the characters dreamed up by the third party. I like the way she thinks.

There’s a great deal of joy and action to this book as well. I can’t imagine what technique Freedman tapped into for this title, but it sure feels like real watercolors on the page. There’s a splatter technique at work here that wouldn’t be impossible to replicate on a computer (paging William Low) but at this point in our development I have yet to see a computer replicate the sheer randomness of askew paint droplets as beautifully as we find here. Nor the feathering of the edges of the paint as it climbs up the chicken’s body. Nor the sheer messy layering of the paint as it dapples the other chickens’ torsos. Limited, in a sense, to a single color the book doesn’t contain the sheer mind-blowing splatter pandemonium of I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More but Freedman still uses the color she has to create wonderful little moments of action. From the splash of the chicken’s feet in the blue paint sea to the strange action splatter that almost resembles angry animals when she finds that she is “Sincerely sorry”, for such a seemingly simple book Freedman has a lot to play around with here.

Now there is one moment in this book that may cause a little confusion. Folks with a knowledge of painting may parse it better than a five-year-old. At one point the blue chicken is rightfully accused of some pretty wanton destruction. Apologetic, she discovers a glass jar containing a clear liquid and some paintbrushes. When the chicken topples this particular jar, out spills a kind of substance that washes all the animals and their settings (with the exception of their sky) clean as a whistle. The word “turpentine” is never invoked. It’s a big word. It might not fit in a book that uses sentences this simple. Freedman is very careful with her word choices, you can tell. There’s not a syllable out of place or an unwanted term hovering anywhere. With that in mind, I would have liked at least some vague or glossed over explanation of what the liquid was up to. Though, to be honest, it may be enough for kids to simply understand that this glass jar contained something powerful enough to cleanse away the fowl’s colorful mischief.

Sometimes in my library I’ll run across a patron with a particularly specific request. “I need a picture book that’s just about the letter T”. “I need a picture book about the history of Persia”. Slightly easier, “I need a picture book about the color blue.” Bingo. Until now I might have only been able to come up with Jim Averbeck’s In a Blue Room or maybe Blue 2 by David A. Carter. Blue Chicken will have to be slotted in there first and foremost now. Playful and surreal without getting so kooky that it loses its audience, Freedman knows how to write a picture book that’s bound to get kids and their parental units reading and rereading over and over and over again.

On shelves September 15th.

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Interviews: Write Wild

Filed under: Best Books of 2011, Reviews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
2011 picture books2011 reviews2012 Caldecott contenderDeborah Freedmanpicture book reviews

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

January 2012

Review of the Day: All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon

by Betsy Bird

December 2011

Review of the Day: A House in the Woods by Inga Moore

by Betsy Bird

December 2011

Review of the Day: Drawing from Memory by Allen Say

by Betsy Bird

December 2011

Review of the Day: Toys Come Home by Emily Jenkins

by Betsy Bird

December 2011

Review of the Day: The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmett

by Betsy Bird

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Surprise! Announcing CABOOSE

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Jump Into this Guest Post by Shadra Strickland About Her Latest Book: Jump In!

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Kiss Number 8 | Review

by Johanna

Heavy Medal

What’s Coming in 2023, A Feedback Poll, and Goodbye for Now…

by Steven Engelfried

Teen Librarian Toolbox

WRITING FOR YOURSELF FIRST, a guest post by author M. K. Lobb

by Karen Jensen, MLS

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

A Book 25 Years in the Making: Marla Frazee Visits The Yarn

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Best Young Adult Books 2021 | SLJ Best Books

Best Nonfiction 2020 | SLJ Best Books

Best Picture Books 2021 | SLJ Best Books

SLJ Book Reviews Editors’ Favorite Books Read in 2022

Best Middle Grade Books 2020 | SLJ Best Books

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AZ says

    April 13, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    Probably the book highest on my anticipation list! Thanks for the review — now I’m all the more eager…

  2. jules says

    April 13, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    Ooh, can’t wait to see!

  3. MotherReader says

    April 14, 2011 at 12:06 am

    Okay, I’m in love with it already. Blue, my favorite color. Chickens, always funny. Barnyard self-actualization, a long-ignored genre. Winner all the way.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

  • External Links

    • A Fuse #8 Production Reviews
  • Follow This Blog

    Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    Primary Sidebar

    • News & Features
    • Reviews+
    • Technology
    • School Libraries
    • Public Libraries
    • Age Level
    • Ideas
    • Blogs
    • Classroom
    • Diversity
    • People
    • Job Zone

    Reviews+

    • Book Lists
    • Best Books
    • Media
    • Reference
    • Series Made Simple
    • Tech
    • Review for SLJ
    • Review Submissions

    SLJ Blog Network

    • 100 Scope Notes
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Heavy Medal
    • Neverending Search
    • Teen Librarian Toolbox
    • The Classroom Bookshelf
    • The Yarn

    Resources

    • 2022 Youth Media Awards
    • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
    • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
    • Summer Reading 2021
    • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
    • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
    • Summer Programming Survey
    • Research
    • White Papers / Case Studies
    • School Librarian of the Year
    • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
    • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

    Events & PD

    • In-Person Events
    • Online Courses
    • Virtual Events
    • Webcasts
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Media Inquiries
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Content Submissions
    • Data Privacy
    • Terms of Use
    • Terms of Sale
    • FAQs
    • Diversity Policy
    • Careers at MSI


    COPYRIGHT © 2023


    COPYRIGHT © 2023