Little Brown Hen's Shower - Hardcover

PreSchool-Grade 2-One morning, Little Brown Hen finds a note on her door inviting her to the farmhouse. Before she leaves, Cat tells her, "There's going to be a shower! We'd all better hurry." The hen places her egg in a baby carriage and sets out with an open umbrella, despite the sunny sky. Along the way, Duck, Goose, and Turkey tease her, suggesting that she is really using her umbrella to practice a circus act, to start a new fashion, or to take flight on a gust of wind. Each one of these silly possibilities is illustrated on a wordless spread. When Brown Hen finally arrives at her destination, she discovers that her friends have thrown a shower for her and her egg, which hatches during the party. That night, she tells her chick, "sometimes words sound the same, but they mean different things." While the vibrant watercolor cartoons do much to keep the action moving, the story line is confusing and disjointed, and the rhyming text is awkward and a bit forced. The whole thing comes across more like a "lesson" on homonyms than a well-thought-out tale, a lesson that may be lost on the intended audience, as many preschoolers may not yet have come across the word "shower" used in this context. Stick with Edwards's Warthogs in the Kitchen (1998) and Warthogs Paint (2001, both Hyperion), clever concept books that have loads of child appeal.
Joy Fleishhacker, formerly at School Library Journal
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This thin tale told in couplets begins as Brown Hen, an expectant mother, has been mysteriously summoned to the farmhouse. She overhears a passing cat remark, "There's going to be a shower!" and opens a large umbrella to protect her precious egg en route even though the skies are sunny and clear. Knowing that the hen is to be feted at a surprise baby shower, the other animals gently tease her: " `Have you thought,' gobbled Turkey, `what the farmer will say when the wind picks you up and sweeps you away?' " Here as elsewhere, LaBrosse (previously teamed with Edwards for The Grumpy Morning) illustrates the scenario with gusto, imagining a sky full of umbrella-toting animals airborne... la Mary Poppins. After being showered with gifts (and achieving motherhood), the hen imparts the lesson to her newly hatched chick: "Sometimes words sound the same, but they mean different things." The artist's watercolor and ink cartoons have an airy energy and mild silliness that make the message go down easily. The set-up, however, seems too protracted for the payoff. Ages 2-5.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.