Catch That Chicken!

Catch That Chicken cover
Catch that Chicken! by Atinuke. Illustrated by Angela Brooksbank

by Atinuke
Illustrated by Angela Brooksbank

Candlewick, 2020
32 pages
9781536212686

Ages 2-5

Lami, a small girl who lives with her extended family in an African compound brimming with activity, is known as an expert chicken catcher. Happily, there are many chickens all around the compound for her to chase after. She uses her speed and skill to run after one particularly wily chicken, chasing it right up a baobab tree, only to fall as she reaches for it. Even laid up with a swollen ankle, Lami is still able to catch the chicken after thinking of a way to make the chicken come to her. Colorful mixed-media illustrations are filled with small details of the busy compound as Lami and the chicken wend their way through smalls scenes such as older children in an outdoor classroom, women cooking food and hanging laundry on the line, and big boys caring for cattle in a bullpen. Repeated phrases in the perfectly paced, patterned text, will make this a great choice for reading aloud to young children. While the story’s cultural setting is not specified, author Atinuke grew up in Nigeria. ©2020 Cooperative Children’s Book Center