Starla Jean: Which came first? The chicken or the friendship?

Starla Jean by Elana K. Arnold
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My kids thought this book was great; I thought it was meh. A little girl goes to the park with her dad and comes home with a chicken. I totally sympathized with the dad who stupidly said she could keep it if she could catch it, never imagining she'd actually catch it. I also sympathized with the mom who did not want a chicken inside the house, though I would have been a LOT more forceful about keeping it outside and away from my dining room table.

It was OK. Silly enough to make my kids laugh; ridiculous enough to make me roll my eyes. (Putting a diaper on a chicken??)

Oh--one thing I didn't understand was that at the end of the book there were some "chicken facts," including that chickens can do basic addition, with an illustration showing a chicken at a chalkboard adding 1+2=3. What?? How is this a chicken fact? If chickens have somehow been proven to be able to add, then the illustration should explain this, not be wildly impossible. That...just...NO.

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