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Summary
Summary
The ladies of Iceland have a problem: the birds lay their eggs in nooks on the sides of steep cliffs, so the ladies have a very difficult time getting any of the eggs for baking. They go to town to buy chickens to lay eggs for them instead. For a while, everyone is happy: there are plenty of eggs to bake plenty of yummy things. But the ladies' problems are far from solved, for the more time the chickens spend with the ladies, the more they begin to act like them too, until eventually they stop laying eggs all together. Now this is a problem indeed, but you can be sure, the clever ladies will find a solution. Full of fun and silliness, this lighthearted tale and vibrant illustrations are a delight.
Author Notes
Bruce McMillan has written and illustrated more children's books set in Iceland than any other United States author. Going Fishing is his sixth to be set there, and his forty-third overall. He often summers in Iceland, though he lives in Shapleigh, Maine. Bruce holds a B.S. in biology from the University of Maine and has received numerous awards and honors for his children's books.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Set in Iceland, this story is about a community of resourceful women who travel to the city to buy a flock of chickens so that eggs are plentiful in the village. However, the chickens run amok and begin to behave more like ladies than birds. Before long, they stop laying eggs. The resilient women develop a far-fetched plan to solve the problem and the merriment swells to a final, hilarious resolution. The playful text is both silly and joyous, without a wasted word. Gunnella's enchanting oil paintings are full of childlike humor and saturated with appealing primary colors. They convey emotion and absurdity with seemingly simple lines and expressive body language. These spirited, buxom ladies and beguiling chickens will be remembered long after the book has been closed. A funny and inventive choice that is also a charming tribute to Icelandic culture and tradition.-Mary Hazelton, Elementary Schools in Warren & Waldoboro, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The subject of McMillan's (Nights of the Pufflings) picture book-perhaps the first ever devoted to interactions between chickens and middle-aged women in an Icelandic village-might seem an uninteresting prospect on the face of it. But the juxtaposition of McMillan's minimal deadpan text (just one or two lines per page) and Icelandic artist Gunnella's comically literal paintings makes for some unlikely hilarity. The author relates the trials of a group of women as they try to secure a reliable supply of eggs. Native birds lay their eggs on inaccessible cliffs, so the female villagers buy chickens instead-but that's only the beginning of their problems. "The chickens forgot they were chickens. They started acting like ladies. When the ladies went to pick blueberries, the chickens went, too.... When the ladies sang to the sheep, the chickens sang, too." Gunnella supplies paintings of buxom, Botero-like women in black dresses, striped aprons and headscarves, shadowed by chickens who mimic them as they drink tea and try dance steps. When the chickens act more human than fowl, the ladies hatch a plan to make the chickens start laying eggs again, involving intensive pullet re-education and a pulley assembly, and both the ladies and the birds grow stronger and more indomitable in the process. Readers young and old will cheer their ingenuity-that is, when they aren't giggling. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) When a group of Icelandic ladies import some chickens -- they need eggs in order to make their delicious cakes -- the chickens inexplicably begin imitating them and neglect their egg-laying duties; so the ladies devise a solution involving exercise, cliffs, and ropes and pulleys. Although the plot is tenuous, to say the least, it hangs together just barely enough to provide a raison d'+tre for the distinctive pictures. Illustrator Gunnella is an Icelandic Dayal Kaur Khalsa -- her folk-art-inspired oil paintings have verve, vibrancy, and humor. The compositions and colors are a delight to the eye, and the chickens are simply funny, whether peeping out from the foliage as they interrupt the ladies' teatime or pushing heavy boulders around as they strengthen their wings. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
PreS-Gr. 2. McMillan makes a successful departure from his many noted photo-essays, such as Nights of the Pufflings0 (1995). Sticking to a bird theme, he has created a simple, humorous tale about chickens with pretensions of becoming women. The village ladies are frustrated because they cannot reach the eggs the wild birds lay on the sides of cliffs. Little do they suspect that the chickens they buy will hatch a new set of problems. The hens decide to do everything the ladies do--pick blueberries, go to birthday parties, have tea--until they are too busy to lay eggs. A fine artist and first-time children's book illustrator, Gunnella makes the transition to picture books quite well: the rotund ladies and irrepressible hens, portrayed in flat, colorful, thickly painted folk-art style, aptly complement the tone of the story. --Diane Foote Copyright 2005 Booklist
