I am in love with two books.

Actually, I love about a million books, but there are two new ones in our house that have become my absolute favorites. I love reading them to the wee beasts and they must love them, too, because they dig through piles of books to find these at bedtime.

Today, I’m featuring the first one. I might like the second one better, but we’ll save that for another day.

This one is simply called “Big Chickens.” It’s written by Leslie Helakoski and is illustrated by Henry Cole.

I love the expressions of the animals throughout the book. They are so lively and engaging. You could almost get the entire story just by looking at the pictures.

Just look at the cow. Her face is priceless! She’s as impressed as I am about how that chicken is using her wing to climb. Who knew chickens could do that?

Here’s a detail of the words. I love the words in these books. They are so fun, bouncy, rhythmic and silly. Leslie uses alliteration as well as rhyming. She repeats key phrases so wee beasts pick them up and start to “read along” very quickly.

“The chickens sputtered, shuddered, and muttered. They fluttered into themselves…”

It’s fun to read in chicken voices, too. “Ooooooooohhh…” is my favorite word to say as a chicken. Put a little chicken garble into the middle of it and it sounds really silly!

Back to the expressions. Little A always has to stop me at this picture and ask why the chicken in the purple polka dotted dress is sleepy. It’s been interesting trying to explain that she is “smug” in the picture. I don’t want to give away why she is, but let’s just say that the “chicken versus wolf” part of the story turns out well.

The fun tongue-twisting wordplay goes all the way to the end of the story.

“Four dirty, dusty, drippy, dazed, daring chickens strutted all the way home.”

And they lived happily ever after. At least until their next crazy adventure in another book.

If you have wee beasts, you should check these books out. I bet they will be an instant hit in your house, too.