Chicken, Chips and Peas; The Hen House; Slow Dog Falling

The Ahlberg/Amstutz partnership has once again produced an idea for a series of books with all the best story elements to delight young readers and adults alike. These three titles published in March 1999, Chicken, Chips and Peas, Slow Dog Failing and The Hen House are already proving firm favourites. The skilfully penned main characters appear in all three books, and the children quickly sum them up, gleefully entering into each scenario. There is economy in the magical rhythm and lilt of Ahlberg's text, enabling readers to predict both the outcomes and the wording, as they become familiar with the characters. Fast Fox is always hungry, Slow Dog is always sleepy, Mother Hen is always on the phone, and her chickens are always in trouble! The reader can predict what will happen as sleepy Slow Dog stumbles into each crisis situation for each time it is he who, unwittingly, saves the day. The endings of each book are very satisfying, and each also concludes with a tempting taster from another in the series.

Amstutz's brilliant illustrations tell many developmental parts of the stories, there being many visual clues which enable early development of predicting skills. The art work is bold, with a clear colour palette, and on every page the match between pictures and text is perfect. The books are therefore brilliant for reading aloud, prior to tempting very early readers to have a go themselves.