Interrupting Chicken: Cookies for Breakfast

by David Ezra Stein, David Ezra Stein (Illustrator)

Overview

In her latest star turn, the little red chicken from the Caldecott Honor Book Interrupting Chicken is hungry—and sillier than ever.

It’s bright and early on a Saturday morning, and the little red chicken wants cookies for breakfast. What better way to persuade Papa than by jarring him awake and gleefully interjecting cookies—and herself!—into every nursery rhyme they read together? Though the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe heartily endorses the little red chicken’s plan, Papa has his own idea for a sweet breakfast for his determined daughter. Featuring the same riotous charm and bright, bold art as Interrupting Chicken and Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise, David Ezra Stein’s third installment will have any fan with a sweet tooth and a love of meta rhyme clamoring to find out: will the early bird get the cookie?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536207781
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Series:	Interrupting Chicken
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	98,744
Product dimensions:	10.60(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

David Ezra Stein is the author-illustrator of many picture books, including Leaves, winner of an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award; Interrupting Chicken, a Caldecott Honor Book; and Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise. He lives in Kew Gardens, New York.

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/01/2021

PreS-Gr 1—The small red chicken (first spied in Interrupting Chicken) who stars in Stein's book so closely mirrors the behavior of preschoolers that it will be hard for listeners not to nod along in recognition. Papa is awakened early by his young charge, who snuggles in with a book of nursery rhymes and makes the case for the cookies for breakfast in bed. Thus, "C is for cookies," as in Vitamin C, and "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack—" breaks off to the interrupting chicken's version: "Brought me some cookies when I was sick!" Papa patiently debates, despite exhaustion, why they cannot have cookies for breakfast, or for lunch, but Chicken is adamant and, through drawings and wordplay, gets his way—with pancakes. It's all but impossible to resist these arguments, and story hours may need to include cookies for hungry participants. Comedic timing, characters' faces, and Chicken's persistence are a master class in interruption; Stein doesn't miss a beat. VERDICT Logic-defying retorts aside, this essential addition is a snug and hilarious version of quality time and the worthiness of a good argument.—Kimberly Olson Fakih, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

2021-07-27
The titular fowl is back, just in time for breakfast.

Readers were first introduced to Stein’s character when the irrepressible little red chicken had a hard time settling down at bedtime despite Papa’s dogged efforts to calm his offspring with some fairy tales. This latest title takes place in the morning, and a wide-awake Chicken struggles to rouse Papa from bed with appeals for “cookies for breakfast.” He resists this blandishment but acquiesces to a request for a snuggly reading of nursery rhymes—which Chicken, of course, interrupts. Repeatedly. The improvised, inserted rhymes persist in their advocacy of cookies for breakfast, and the series’ trademark metafictive play of books within a book depicts familiar Mother Goose characters startled by Chicken’s intrusion (with cookies) into their rhymes. “There was an old woman / who lived in a shoe. / She had so many — // ‘Cookies, she gave me a few!’ ” yells Chicken, jumping in through the window and startling the old woman, who’s just taken a sheet of cookies out of the oven. On the next page they sit down to a cozy snack of tea and cookies. Papa and Chicken’s scenes are done in rich, full color, while the nursery-rhyme pages are done as bleached-out cartoons. A culminating rhyme of Chicken’s own devising fails to convince Papa of the merits of cookies for breakfast, but he has another treat in store for his little chick: pancakes.

A sweet and silly read for any time of day. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews

Comedic timing, characters’ faces, and Chicken’s persistence are a master class in interruption; Stein doesn’t miss a beat. . . . Logic-defying retorts aside, this essential addition is a snug and hilarious version of quality time and the worthiness of a good argument.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

A sweet and silly read for any time of day.
—Kirkus Reviews

The ‘Interrupting Chicken’ books won’t lull any child to sleep—the pace is too jangly and jumpy for that—but they do tend to delight 4- to 8-year-olds, especially those with a tendency to butt in.
—The Wall Street Journal

This latest installment of the interrupting chicken saga is, like the rest, hilarious, vibrantly illustrated and witty.
—The Virginian-Pilot

Perfect bedtime reading.
—The Saint Paul Pioneer Press Online

From the Publisher