MY LITTLE CHICK

A child learns that nurturing an egg
takes a lot of care and patience.

Hiding out in a henhouse, young Lena
gets an excellent view (as do readers) of an egg being laid, and when the hen
wanders off, Lena carries it into the house. A few moments later, the egg is on
the floor in pieces! Lena’s mom briskly explains that not all eggs hatch
anyway, and aside from leaving them to the hen, the best way to care for them
is with an incubator. Lena’s family pitches in to build one…and then comes the
long, 21-day wait. Tharlet mostly leaves Lena and the rest of the pale-skinned
human family out of the lively, close-up illustrations, focusing instead on the
humorously knowing-looking hens and on the egg in the incubator, drawn by Lena
on a day-by-day calendar decorated with a face and being properly turned. At
the appointed time (“This is it!!”), a small crack gets longer and longer,
until the shell at last falls away to reveal a cute, fuzzy, larger-than-life
chick: “so soft, so sweet—what a wonder!” Being more about that wonder than
embryonic development or chicken husbandry, the episode ends with Lena carrying
the chick outside to join fellow hatchlings clustered around a welcoming hen,
but a URL points to directions for constructing a simple incubator.

A cozy episode with a little
instruction and a lot of excitement. (Picture book. 4-6)