Little Naomi, Little Chick

"Story time!

Naomi hears a story about a bunny

who lost his tail and thought it was funny.

Then she makes a picture

with all of her paints --

pink and green

yellow and blue.

Red and brown

and purple too.

"But not Little Chick."

Discovering a book like LITTLE NAOMI, LITTLE CHICK makes me wish I was again back in the days of leading daily preschool story times so that I’d have a knee-high audience at hand with whom to share this picture book tale of a little girl at preschool and her mischievous little chick back at home. 

I've always loved sharing books where there is a punch line that offers opportunities for young listeners to participate.  Books like "JUMP, FROG! JUMP! get everyone revved up and involved.   Here you have the repeating refrain, "But not Little Chick." for everyone to belt out. 

On the left side of each two-page spread in LITTLE NAOMI, LITTLE CHICK, we read what Little Naomi is doing over the course of her day at preschool.  On the right side of each spread, we find a full-page wordless crayon-and-pencil illustration showing us what Little Chick and her animal co-conspirators are up to while Little Naomi is busy at school (and the grownups are off at work).  The repeating refrain of "But not Little Chick." is our cue to look over and see the trouble that Little Chick and the rest of the critters at home are NOW getting into.  That the Little Chick portions are wordless provides the opportunity to have the audience members participate in the telling of what is going on with the animals. 

The parallel stories are tied together visually by Little Naomi's wearing of red-tipped "antennae" while Little Chick is decked out with a pair of feathers sitting up above her head.  

Somewhere, with a little luck, a preschool classroom full of children is going to have their teacher read LITTLE NAOMI, LITTLE CHICK aloud to them and then some brilliant young (evil) genius in the class is going to begin imitating Little Chick's antics.  And I'd sure like to be there for that. 

36 pages  978-0-8028-5427-8