Monday, January 22, 2007 Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Agee, Jon. 2006. WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? New York:
Dial. ISBN 0803730942 [Suggested Grade Levels 1 – 6] Although
this eclectic picture book will amuse anyone, it holds special
appeal for fans of contemporary children’s picture book art. In
it, fourteen of today’s most successful picture book artists
visually answer the perennial question: Why did the chicken
cross the road? The scenarios depicted range as widely as the
artists’ recognizable styles. Marla Frazee begins by contrasting
a chicken coop beneath gloomy wet skies against a colorful
chicken palace on the sunny side of the street. A single
word--“duh”--hovers above the chicken. Later, David Shannon
shows a chicken at the wheel of a red convertible filled with
barnyard animals. The caption reads “because the light was
green!” In contrast, Harry Bliss says that to answer the
question we should “ask the mutated zombie chickens from Mars!”
He then pictures a chicken hot footing it acr