Help Wanted: One Rooster

by Julie Falatko, Andrea Stegmaier (Illustrator)

Overview

The search for the perfect rooster to save a struggling farm from chaos will leave readers howling—and trying out their very best cock-a-doodle-doo!

A farm.

Bucolic beauty, barns, and...sleepy animals everywhere?

This farm needs a rooster, and Cow is determined to find the perfect candidate.

One rooster, who wakes up first thing in the morning, with a resounding cock-a-doodle-do—is that too much to ask?

YES!

This tale of a frenzied farm and the beleaguered cow trying to keep it all together packs more than laughs. As each enthusiastic candidate learns: roostering isn’t what you are, but what you do. And there’s room for everyone.

As long as they wake up early—er, I mean brew strong coffee—or is it press the big button?—oh never mind. All are welcome!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451476838
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	06/18/2024
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	10.88(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.35(d)
Lexile:	AD540L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Julie Falatko writes books for children. She is the author of the picture books Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book) and Snappsy the Alligator and His Best Friend Forever (Probably), No Boring Stories!, The Great Indoors, the Two Dogs in a Trench Coat chapter book series, and Rick the Rock of Room 214. Julie lives with her family in Maine, where she maintains the Little Free Library in front of their house.

You can follow her at JulieFalatko.com.

Andrea Stegmaier loves to make books. As a kid she made books for her dolls, later she made books for her kids, and now she makes books for everyone. She went to university to study architecture, but that’s a different story. Andrea lives with her family in Stuttgart, a busy town in Germany.

You can follow her at AndreaStegmaier.com.

Editorial Reviews

03/18/2024

The Office meets Chicken Run in this workplace comedy, in which an “extremely cool and helpful sheep” reveals how a barnyard solves its productivity problem. When the farm’s rooster becomes distracted by a hobby and ignores his crowing responsibilities, the whole farm begins to oversleep. The farm’s cow (“She has a clipboard. This is a professional cow”) conducts interviews, dismissing each nontraditional candidate for replacement rooster. The first, dressed “in an inexplicable tuxedo,” wants to ring a bell instead of crowing; the second offers to wake everyone with “fresh, hot coffee”; the third, a small brown bird, wants to press a nonexistent button to do the job; and the fourth, a green, transparent blob, answers questions in its own blobby language (“Glarka-glarka-bloo”). It takes the warm cooperation of all four to get things moving, even if their distinctive gifts don’t shift the farm’s status quo. Alongside snappy narration from Falatko (Rick the Rock of Room 214), crisp-edged, graphical artwork by Stegmaier (AAALLIGATOR!) packs visual information into busy spreads in which a gardener rabbit dozes while the hose runs, and an audio speaker signals the rooster’s new interest. Ages 3–5. (June)

Publishers Weekly

2024-04-05
Barnyard animals attempt to hire a new rooster.

A cow seeks a “focused and undistracted rooster who will get this farm back on track.” But the applicants have their own ideas. A white-feathered, caffeine-loving chicken offers to wake the farm animals up with freshly brewed coffee. “It will never work for us,” responds Cow. The other candidates include an inexplicably tuxedo-clad rooster who wants to ring a bell instead of crowing, a small brown bird whose lack of farm experience quickly becomes evident, and a translucent green blob who speaks a language Cow can’t understand. At last, the farm’s original rooster wakes up and crows; “the roostering part of being a rooster” isn’t very demanding, so he’s been devoting his time to playing music, which keeps him up late. The “solution” to ensuring that a rooster crows every morning will have grown-ups chuckling about the inefficiencies of the workplace. Illustrations dominated by rich reds and browns and cool blues bring the setting to life. Stegmaier gives this farmyard a clever modern flair; the cow is dressed in overalls and boots, her hair in a topknot, while the “extremely cool and helpful sheep” who narrates is clad in a sweater and a pleated skirt. While the jokes about the trials and tribulations of the job market may be lost on younger readers, kids will nevertheless giggle at the expressive animals and whimsical artwork.

A cheeky tale worth crowing about. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews