From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 3-Minerva Louise is back. This time, the happy, self-satisfied hen meanders over to the fairgrounds and misinterprets everything she encounters based on her experience on the farm. She sees stars falling all around (fireworks); steps into a moving bulldozer (Ferris wheel); sees dozens of other hens (trick mirrors); mistakes the merry-go-round for a horse barn; and finally roosts for the night in one of the boxes built for the rabbit judging. The next day she is discovered by her very own farmer, who takes her home to a hero's welcome. The artwork is outstanding. With a triangle for a beak and two dots for eyes, Minerva Louise has an amazing variety of expressions as she walks along peering here and there or sits plump and happy with herself or enjoys the wind while in the back of the moving truck on the ride home. With one or two lines accompanying a bright, full-page picture, this is a perfect choice to share with a group. Anyone who has ever made an error in perception will appreciate Minerva Louise's logic as she figures everything out entirely wrong. And everyone will cheer as things turn out perfectly all right. This hen deserves a blue ribbon.
Marlene Gawron, Orange County Library, Orlando, FL Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Ages 2-6. "We see with what we know," said Conan Doyle's famous detective Sherlock Holmes, and the unflappable hen Minerva Louise is a perfect (and hilarious) case in point. In her adventures (now numbering 12, including board books), Minerva always mistakes objects outside the farm for something in her familiar world. This time, Minerva has a Chicken Little moment when she sees fireworks and thinks the stars are falling. She follows the bursts to a fair, mistaking the roller coasters for mountains. More mistaken sightings follow (the carousel is a horse barn; the Ferris wheel a bulldozer), all of which are bound to tickle preschoolers' sense of the ridiculous. The story will be great for lap sharing or reading aloud to small groups: listeners will delight in catching Minerva's goofs. The brightly colored, boldly outlined drawings underscore the simplicity and comedy of Minerva's world.
Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
