Back to the basics of teaching and learning Book

Chicken Licken follows the story of a chicken who feels as if the sky is falling. When he was standing beneath an oak tree, an acorn fell on his head without him realizing what had hit him. Convinced it was the sky, he embarked on a journey to track down the king. At first, he checks behind some bushes where he finds Henny Penny. After hearing his assumptions, she joins his journey to find the king. Next, they came across a gate that once again did not locate the king. Instead, they found Goosey Lucy and Drakey Lakey who also agreed to come with. Later, they stumbled upon some long grass that once again, wasn't where the king was hiding. Instead, funny bunny and Lovey Dovey became the next members of the journey. All of the animals walked about until they met Turkey Lurkey. They failed to realize that someone was listening behind the straw bales. When the animals noticed an important looking door they found what they thought could be the king. Unfortunately, it was actually a fox dressed up as royalty to trick the animals into being eaten. Luckily the animals thought fast and slammed and locked the door with the fox trapped behind it. So, Chicken Licken and his friends were all safe and quickly realized that the sky was not falling, simply an acorn had.

All of the characters appear to be very friendly and helpful. When hearing about the chaos, they all embarked on the journey to help Chicken Licken find the king. There was no hesitation or further questions, everyone was just willing to help.
Chicken Licken seems to be naive and almost fearful. He didn't realize an acorn had hit him and immediately jumped to the conclusion that the sky was falling. He also seems brave for checking behind so many objects and places even though Chicken Licken wasn't aware of what he would find.
The Fox however, came across as sneaky and dangerous. His main goal was to trick all of the animals to gain a meal. He was disliked by Chicken Licken and all of his friends and most definitely the villain of the story.

I loved this book because it had different pop ups and extra flaps of paper to represent where Chicken Licken was looking behind. The illustrations were all bright colors and the emotions were shown in each picture. Whether it was happy, scared, devious, curious, the expressions were thoroughly represented in each picture. The text was located in conversation bubbles half the time to show the dialogue between each of the animals that were encountered. It created a first person perspective rather than a third which was a nice change from many children books.

I liked how this book incorporated pop ups and the texture of the book and pages. I also loved the story line of the sky falling as it reminded me of chicken little.

I would use this book as a way to teach dialogue in a creative way. It shows your students that text bubbles can be helpful if they are used properly and can create innovative ways to combine text with illustrations. Students can then create their own textual illustrations to show their understanding of conversation bubbles.