The Surprise Family [Paperback]

Lynn Reiser (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up

A baby chicken accepts a young boy as her mother and later becomes a surrogate mother for some ducklings that she has hatched.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3-A delightful story about a chick who is raised by a boy. He "...was not the kind of mother the chick had expected, but she loved him anyway." When she is fully grown, she hatches a clutch of abandoned eggs and unknowingly mothers five ducklings. She is shocked when her children insist on going for a swim, but when they come back to her and she inspects them more closely, she realizes that "Ducklings were not the kind of family she had expected, but she loved them anyway." This tender tale will please families everywhere. The subtle messages of love, expectation, and parental roles will appeal to adoptive and extended families as well. The nurturing boy is a refreshing, albeit minor, character. The clean, simple, cartoonlike watercolors are placed in appealing juxtaposition to the text. Some illustrations are boxed into squares and rectangles, while on other pages the drawings are freely strewn across a clean white background. This warm, caring book should find a place on the shelf next to P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother? (Random, 1986) and Keiko Kasza's A Mother for Choco (Putnam, 1992). A pleasant story-hour offering.
Beth Tegart, Oneida City Schools, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Ages 4-7. When the baby chick looks out of the egg, she sees a boy. He was "not the kind of mother the chick had expected, but she loved him anyway." So it goes, with the chick becoming a hen and being given duck eggs by the boy to raise. She raises the ducklings, as she would chickens. and they love her anyway. And when the ducklings take to the water, despite her "DANGER dance," she loves them anyway. This graceful fable, in which love is greater than any set of labels, is well served by the watercolor and pen-and-ink illustrations. The ducklings, peering attentively out of their eggs, and the little hen herself are quite individually rendered, and the drawing of the danger dance will inspire young performers. Varying page designs and effective use of white space amplify the visual pleasure. Mary Harris Veeder --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: HarperTrophy (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068815476X
• ISBN-13: 978-0688154769
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,353,416 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Charming, September 30, 2000

By 

Lisa M. Dugan "momfriend" (Wenonah, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Surprise Family (Hardcover)

We found this book a delightful surprise. The story is quite sweet and the repetition comforting. My 2+1/2 year old has made this one of his favorites. The protectiveness of both the boy as mama and then the hen as mama is wonderfully reinforcing. We love to enact the mama hen's danger squalk and danger dance.

The rhyming and pacing of the story make it fun for a read aloud, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I also find the balance of artwork and white space and the size of the text on the page to make it even that more appealing. Our son even loves to study the cover of the book which represents the whole story line in picture vignettes if you follow the squares arround the border.

I would also highly recommend this book as a novel way to introduce the concept of family diversity and/or adoption too.

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful story about a non-traditional family, May 28, 2011

By 

Wendy (Fresno, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Surprise Family (Paperback)

Written at a reading level easily mastered by first graders, the message of love in this book can be appreciated by anyone who has ever loved or been loved. It has a deeper message of diversity though. Not everyone's family is like they expected it to be, but what matters is the love within it.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Surprise Family, May 17, 2011

By 

grandmaash - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Surprise Family (Hardcover)

Our first grader laughed out loud when he read this book. Its an age appropriate book, with a cute story line. I purchased it as a homeschooler, because I noticed it was on the local schools First grade reading list, and I thought it would be helpful to see if he was keeping up! A first grade reader should be able to read it by the middle to end of the first grade.