FICTION – all books are rated 1, 2, 3 or 4 as determined by The Horn Book Guide
This list is divided into sections: Picture Books, Easy Readers, Younger, Intermediate and Older.
PICTURE BOOKS
A Packet of Seeds by Deborah Hopkinson
Greenwillow © 2004
After giving birth, a newly transplanted pioneer mother suffers from depression in her isolated prairie cabin. Her older daughter senses what she needs and works to clear a place to plant the flower seeds they brought with them.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-06-009089-8
A Place to Grow by Soyung Pak
Scholastic/Levine © 2002
As a girl and her father make a garden, he presents it as a metaphor for their life: like a seed blown by the wind, they had to fly far to find a safe place to “grow into our family.”
Recommended Age Range:Picture Book
ISBN: 0-439-13015-8
A Visit to the Farm (Little Bill) by Lara Bergen (Not rated.)
Simon Spotlight/Nickelodeon © 2003
Little Bill encourages children to value their family and friends, to feel good about themselves, and to learn to solve problems creatively. This adventure takes Little Bill to the farm.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0689862695
Anna’s Corn by Barbara Santucci
Eardmans © 2002
After her grandfather dies, Anna doesn’t want to plant the corn kernels he gave her: “If I bury them, they’ll be gone forever.” She relents, and when the corn grows, she saves some new kernels for the following spring and is even able to hear the “music” that her grandfather taught her to listen for. This story about the cycles of life is gently told.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-8028-5119-3
Barn Raising by Craig Brown
Greenwillow © 2002
A short and straightforward text describes the cooperative efforts of an Amish community as the men construct a new barn in one day.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-06-029399-3
Bob by Tracey Campbell Pearson
Farrar © 2002
Bob the rooster learns a variety of animal noises before discovering how to crow properly. When a fox threatens the hen house one night, however, Bob’s loud “cock-a-doodle-do!” doesn’t work: he must use all the animal sounds he knows to frighten the fox away.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-374-39957-3
Chicken Chickens Go to School by Valeri Gorbachev
North-South/Cheshire © 2003
In their second book, the two chicks have trepidations about their first day at school. At first, everyone seems too busy to talk to them, but after the other animal children help them across a stream during outside time, the chicks feel braver and begin to make friends.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-7358-1600-X
Chicken in the Kitchen by Tony Johnston
Simon © 2005
“There’s a chicken in the kitchen, / and she’s pokin’ like the dickens / at the oven and the bread box. / Just a peckin’ and a pickin’.” In this bouncy rhyme, a good choice for reading aloud, the chicken causes “pure-dee havoc”; eventually, the narrator realizes she’s seeking a place to nest.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-689-85641-5
Chickerella by Mary Jane Auch
Holiday © 2005
In this clever parody of “Cinderella,” the hen Chickerella and her Fairy Goosemother love fashion design, while the prince is really into “eggscessories.” Their “happily ever after” includes not marriage, but a business partnership and the creation of a “fashion line called Chickerella.”
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-8234-1804-9
City Chicken by Arthur Dorros
HarperCollins © 2003
Gently scrambling elements from “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse” with “The Mice and the Elephant,” Dorros introduces young listeners to Henry (Henrietta), a wisecracking city chicken. After a cat sows seeds of discontent, Henry becomes convinced that she should try out life in the country. Her ensuing misadventures provide a fertile field for wordplay.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-06-028482-X
Cluck O’Clock by Kes Gray
Holiday © 2004
Ummetered rhyming text follows a day in the life of farm hens and a rooster, from dawn when they rise, eat breakfast, lay eggs, and mosey around the farm, to nightfall when a hungry fox comes sniffing around the hen house. Each event is punctuated by the time of day it occurs.
Recommended Age Range: Picture Book
ISBN: 0-8234-1809-X
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