Five Little Chicks

From School Library Journal PreSchool-Grade 1–As day breaks, five newly hatched and hungry chicks run around the farmyard looking for something to eat. Each one finds a possible meal–a worm, a ladybug, a strawberry, a butterfly, a trout–but none is just right until wise Mama Hen leads her hatchlings to the corn patch where they learn to scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch. Told rhythmically and partially in rhyme, this simple story ends with the babes cuddling up near their mama as the moon comes up. Done in brush pen, watercolor pencils, and ink, Tafuris endearing illustrations sweep across the pages, presenting an intensely close-up view of the chicks and the action. Though the tale is slight, the youngest listeners will delight in the art featuring almost life-size fowl, and beginning readers will find the text easy to manage.