<i>Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken</i> (review)
2008; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 62; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.0.0573
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Themes in Literature Analysis
ResumoReviewed by: Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken Jeannette Hulick DiCamillo, Kate. Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken; illus. by Harry Bliss. Cotler/ HarperCollins, 2008 48p Library ed. ISBN 978-0-06-075555-3 $18.89 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-075554-6 $17.99 R Gr. 5–8 In this picture book divided into four brief chapters, each a story in its own right, DiCamillo plunges her feathered French heroine right into the action: “Louise longed for adventure. She left the henhouse and went to sea, where the water was dark and deep.” Naturally, the ship that plump chicken Louise boards is soon set upon by pirates (“Here, at last, was true adventure!”), all of whom want to cook her, though they can’t agree on a culinary method; luckily, a storm dispatches the pirates and lets Louise make her way back to her henhouse. In the next two stories, Louise joins a circus (where she is nearly consumed by a lion on the loose) and travels to a faraway bazaar (where she is captured and incarcerated in a cage before freeing herself and her clueless chicken cellmates); in the last chapter, the formerly reticent hen finally shares the details of her adventures with her “sister hens.” Louise’s initial unwillingness to describe her travels is a bit baffling, but the comic appeal of a daring chicken and DiCamillo’s skill at both melodrama and wry humor easily overrides such concerns. The absurdity of the text and Louise’s naïveté are capably conveyed and amplified by Bliss’ line-and-watercolor illustrations of the pop-eyed, long-lashed, buxom Louise as she blithely travels from one escapade to the next. Audiences will giggle at this comically adventurous chick lit. [End Page 152] Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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