Chicken Little by Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley.
We all know the story of Chicken Little. Bonked on the head with an acorn, loses his grip and heads out to tell everyone of the horror that the sky is falling. He gathers a group of feathery friends who believe him and then meets up with the fox who knows just how to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him. The only question with any new edition of the story is whether Chicken Little lives on in the end. Let me reassure you that here he does, so it is fine to use even with sensitive toddlers and preschoolers.
What makes this book a great version of the story is that the words are kept to a minimum and even with those few words there is a lot of humor. Each bird has his or her own little sound that they make, from Chicken Little’s EEP! to Loosey Goosey’s ONK! And take a look at that cover, Emberley’s art is zany, colorful and almost kaleidoscopic at times. It perfectly matches the tone of the text.
A winning version of this classic tale, this may just be the best read aloud version I have seen. The art will project well to a large crowd too. Appropriate for ages 3-5.
Waking Brain Cells 
Hi Tasha,
I love your wonderful blog, and I apologize for butting in with a non sequitur comment here. (Though I do also love the Emberley’s work, and I will be sure to check out this book.)
I’m a children’s book writer and illustrator. I’m on a mission to save vintage children’s books, and I’m trying to alert all the people who might care about them. Under a new U.S. law that went into effect in February (the CPSIA or toy lead law), it is now illegal to sell or give away (and technically also distribute from a library though ALA is advising libraries to wait and see if the law changes) any children’s books printed in 1984 or earlier, with an exception for a small number of adult-only collectibles. The problem is that prior to 1985, there was sometimes a small amount of lead in the inks used to print books – but most books are lead-free and those that aren’t are only dangerous to people who eat them. Nonetheless, there is no way to tell if a book is lead-free without using digestive testing, which is both expensive and destroys the book, so the old books aren’t supposed to be sold.
You can learn more about this law and how it affects children’s books at overlawyered.com, bookroomblog.com, heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com, amendthecpsia.com, and my blog, doodlesandnoodles.blogspot.com, as well as from articles in Publisher’s Weekly (here’s the link to the most recent article about it – you can get to their others from there: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6648646.html?nid=2788)
Sorry for such a long, intrusive post. But if more people don’t join the fight, old books are just going to gradually fade away. Congress so far is not interested in making any changes to the law.
Thanks.
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