Chicken Little

Chicken Little

Author Rebecca Emberley

Illustrator Ed Emberley

Roaring Brook 2009

34 Pages

Children’s Traditional Literature

                This is a story about a little chicken who is “Oh my goodness oh my gracious worried for his life”. Chicken little is walking along minding his own business when suddenly Plop a acorn falls on his head. Thinking the sky is falling and it is the end of the word he grabs a umbrella and runs for his life. Along the way he picks up Henny Penny, Lucky Ducky, Loosey Goosey, and Turkey Lurkey. They all get ran into by each other and Chicken Little tells them the “Sky is falling we are running for our lives” and they all follow him not knowing what else to do or where there going. The eventually meet up with Foxy Loxy who has what she says is a plan to help them. Will it actually be a plan to save them or something else? You won’t know unless you read Chicken Little.

                The illustrations in this book were very simple. The pictures were drawn not to look completely like an actual animal in the story. The text mainly stayed at the top of the page, and it went across the pages. The illustrations also had words like “Quack” and “Boink” to go along with them. The medium used was water colors, pen and ink. I think the bright boldness of the illustrations would catch a young reader’s eye. The pictures also go across the pages, as well as some of them are only on one page. This book could be read to preschoolers up to elementary students. I think the underlying moral that the story has is good for any age level.

                You could teach a classroom lesson on good moral behavior with this book. You could write scenario’s down and have the children in groups discuss what they would think of as good or bad. Such as blindly following your friends, picking on a kid at school, or helping a friend in need. This would allow the students to interact their thoughts with each other. Another connection could be allowing the students to write their own version of the story, as what do you think would have happened if one of the friends stopped Chicken Little and asked where they were going. This would invoke their critical thinking skills. Lastly you could have them make their own character from the story and put their own twist on it. Such as they could make Chicken Little but make him have glasses like they do.