Publication Date: April 1, 2009 | Age Range: 3 and up
You know what? What? Chicken butt!
The classic schoolyard joke has been recast as an irreverent picture book, with call-and-response parts for parent and child. The word repetition in Erica S. Perl’s text, and wonderfully comic illustrations by beloved artist Henry Cole, make this a particularly inviting book for new readers, as does the opportunity to “trick” a parent or other adult into participating in a very silly joke. The humor builds to a surprising and satisfying conclusion. Warning: Kids will want to read this one over and over and over again!
“An unhinged piece of slap-happy rhyming…rocket-propelled artwork…the romp is a powerful piece of cacophony, more frenetic by the moment.”—Kirkus Reviews
{"itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":9.85,"ASIN":"0810983257","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":9.85,"ASIN":"0810997290","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":13.69,"ASIN":"1599903113","isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"0810983257::odnSGxIDuDcrnMVNgG%2FUQww0GiD1AqlGEqOjfTTMTmFp8pkcUide%2FMF%2F275GgR5NZxjbo1rDu4bm1%2FM1v%2BjfGC2vwYYN1K5nLM%2Bbk1T23jY%3D,0810997290::BvMFKI%2B%2B4kOPF0m7oq1%2FNKjez0XMGbMQ%2BtxMxWkEEB54geYw3lcvJE0pk3%2B2Li6j%2Fv%2FEgQ8ArESIkMw3RTa0o6FZSVTWpIf4qyFPjKnGOXSI0EuSLGJ3Bw%3D%3D,1599903113::IRWjJv7DfXeQcjxIk9Z5d6RRSx7jXG6T18rfLq%2FsJ78b5H7COFw5kvji1mA0IswvECRluq9GMWd2LByqI%2F79GdogKwyw%2FGjTUPL%2FBPBOdYBMJ4gtWLCJ%2BQ%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"currenyCode":"USD","shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","yz":"same","xy":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["add to wishlist","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items"]}}
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 Dad’s 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 doesn’t have anything to do with chickens, but doesn’t lose the butt part either. Each poultry-based answer is splayed across the relevant bit of a cartoonish chicken, emphasizing the child’s exuberant silliness. Adults will easily recognize kids’ habits of taking a joke and running with it ad nauseam, blithely ignorant that they’ve 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. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Ian Chipman
About the Author
Erica S. Perl is a full-time writer and part-time chicken. She is the author of Ninety-three in My Family (Reuben Award, Book Sense Pick, Slate’s Best Books), which School Library Journal called a “comic masterpiece,” and Chicken Bedtime Is Really Early, which received a starred review from Booklist. She lives with her family in Washington, D.C. Visit her at ericaperl.com. Henry Cole grew up on a farm in Virginia with a coop full of mischievous chickens. He now lives in Florida with two peacocks. You can find him online at www.henrycole.net.
Product Details
Age Range: 3 and up
Hardcover: 32 pages
Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers; Library Binding edition (April 1, 2009)
Erica S. Perl is an award winning children's book author. Her new middle grade novel, When Life Gives You O.J., is a "warm novel about family, friendship, and fitting in that offers a refreshing take on the grandparent-grandchild rapport and strikes an admirable balance of humor and pathos--at times in the same scene." (Publishers Weekly).
Erica is the author of Dotty (illustrated by Julia Denos), which is perfect for back-to-school and has been called "a charmer" (Kirkus Reviews) and "an unadulterated delight" (Publishers Weekly). She is also the author of Chicken Butt! (now available in plush from Merrymakers!), Chicken Butt's Back!, Ninety-three In My Family and Chicken Bedtime is Really Early.
In addition, Erica is the author of the YA novel, Vintage Veronica. Publishers Weekly calls Vintage Veronica "wonderfully fun." Booklist says Erica "masterfully" creates "earthy and real" emotional lives for her characters, building "a romance that's as complicated as it is sweet," and School Library Journal cheers Veronica as "a much needed character in young adult fiction."
When she is not writing, Erica likes to sing, dance, draw, read, and eat stale red licorice. She loves animals and kids and is wonderful with them, but she is terrible with plants. Seriously - ask any plant.
Well, I wasn't even allowed to say the word "butt" when I was growing up, and here it is in a book. Teachers, you know how hard it is to get your students to reread. Well, one of my first graders has read this at least 50 times. He reads it fluently with enormous expression and still laughs when he reads it. It is just plain fun.
Yikes! It absolutely amazes me how themes develop in kidlit. Right now it's butts, rearends, tushies. The first book I read in this group was Ian Blacks "Chicken Cheeks". The artwork by Kevin Hawkes was very nice.
Then there was "Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo" and "The Tushy Book". My gang has not read neither of these two, although we've seen them, and I imagine we'll pick them up at the library at some point.
Which is what I suggest you do with "Chicken Butt!" The reason I don't suggest you run out and buy this book -- despite the fact that my 7 year old son thought it was funny -- is that it's a one trick pony. Yes... the artwork is colorful and cute. And Yes... it made my son laugh, and my daughter (9) smile, BUT it's not the sort of book they are going to read and reread over months. A week yes. But it's got no long term staying power.
The dialog between a boy and his dad starts out like this:
You know what? What? Chicken Butt!
You know why? Why? Chicken thigh.
They then go on to cover 'how' and 'when', etc. And it ends in a fashion reminiscent to the old knock-knock joke that involves a banana and orange.
Talking Points::: This is a cute book that has kid-friendly art and a laugh or three. It ought to appeal to preschoolers through 8 year olds.
Though the book is nicely put together I can't recommend it as a purchase.
Yeah, as you might expect, I have yet to have found a young kid who did NOT think that this was the funniest book they have ever read! It seems like all of the kids in school are doing that "You know what? Chicken butt!"
So, if you want to give your kid a real treat, give this book to him or her - you'll never hear the end of it! (God knows I haven't.)
