Where Are My Chicks?

by Sally Grindley, Jill Newton (Illustrator)

Mother Hen has to find her chicks and recruits the help of the farmyard animals to help gather them up one-by-one, in a counting book with full-color illustrations.

Genres: Picture Books, Storytime, Animals, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 1999

About the author

I came into children's books originally as Editorial Director of a nationwide children's book club, though I had written and directed a children's play while a student at Sussex University, which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. I wrote my first two children's picture books in 1984 and was lucky enough that Anthony Browne wanted to illustrate the second - Knock Knock Who's There? It was published in 1985, is still going strong today and is one of my most successful.

Shhh! was published in 1991 and has known great success in France/Belgium in particular (close on 300,000 copies sold). It's success in the UK - it won the Children's Book Award - was hampered by the liquidation of its original publisher.

I became a full-time author in 1995 and now have some 150+ titles published, the most recent being L'Histoire du Soir in France, Belgium and Italy.

Feather Wars, published in 2003, was my first sortie into young fiction and was followed by the very successful Spilled Water, which has been published in some ten different languages and is very popular in schools as a class reader. It won the Nestle Smarties Gold Award (and I wound up being a 'Pointless' answer on the back of it!) Broken Glass came next and was a Sunday Times Book of the Week.

I'm currently working on picture books again and have plans to illustrate one of my own in the not too distant future - watch this space!

Reviews

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for early readers and counters.

[Tom Ashbee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mother Hen was actually the villain

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where Are My Chicks? by Sally Grindley, illustrated by Jill Newton is a farm counting book that follows the search for Mother Hen's missing chicks.

Newton's illustrations were created using acrylic paint on paper. Among the animals featured are hen, chicks, bees, owl, frog, donkey, pigs, rabbits, goat, sheep, dragonfly, goose and gooslings. Along with the animals are other details including flowers, flowerpots, beehives, cattails, fence, mud, tractor, straw, clouds and trees. My favorite illustrations include we'll help, donkey, the pigs, goat, and only four.

This is a cute counting book with lots of farm animals and some farm related objects to name. This should be fun to read aloud and for a storytime. The large font make this a beginning reader possibility. 3.5 star rating.

For ages 2.5 to 5, counting, animals, mothers, lost-and-found, farms, and fans of Sally Grindley and Jill Newton.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical farm yard counting book; the plot of this one centers on a mother hen who has lost her chicks. Fun, repetitive narrative and cute illustrations combine to make this a good book to read aloud to children. (Also a good reminder to little ones to stay with their mamas.)

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hunt for lost chicks turns into a fun counting adventure with a funny twist. Children will laugh and parents can also use the text to teach comparisons and same/different.