'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cute story based on the rhyme/pattern of “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The kids were drawn with different skin & hair colors; however, the adults were both white. The story requires a fair amount of willing suspension of disbelief, but that makes it silly & fun, so OK. The ending does rather seem like it’s trying to influence kids toward vegetarianism, which I have mixed feelings about, but overall it’s a funny book I think my kids will enjoy.

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Chicken, Chicken, Duck!

Chicken, Chicken, Duck! by Nadia Krilanovich
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read the description of this book and had to do a double-take because, wait, there was humor? And the animals are "up to something"? Well, OK, at the end they stand on top of each other in a sort of animal-cheerleader-pyramid thing.

I read this book for a toddler storytime because I was looking for a book with a lot of different animal sounds in it. Having kids making/imitating animal sounds is actually an early literacy skill, which is what I was going for, and from that standpoint it was a success. But there is virtually no story to the book, so dialogic reading is essential if you want to keep the children's attention. To be honest, I hadn't noticed any humor or "surprising details in the illustrations"--although the illustrations are well-rendered, it's not like the animals are introduced in any logical order other than what (mostly) makes the rhythm flow.

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