In SouperChicken by Mary Ann and Herman Auch (ISBN-10: 0823418294, 2004), reading saves the day for the plucky heroine and her unwitting farm animal friends. SouperChicken is a tale about a passionate reader named Henrietta. Henrietta loved to read, and as a self-taught bookworm, Henrietta is at first teased, then applauded when her reading skills help her foil the farmer's plot to turn her friends into chicken soup.

The trouble on the chicken farm begins on the day when Henrietta and her aunties are told they are going on vacation, because the aunties have stopped laying eggs. The farmer cackles to himself as he makes one silly joke after another relating to cooking and chicken soup. Henrietta is suspicious of the farmer's behavior, but her worst fears are confirmed when the truck taking the Hens reveals the name of a popular soup-making company. Henrietta is beside herself, and bravely takes a wild ride on the chicken truck to the chicken factory in the hopes of rescuing her friends. Along the way she meets other unwitting animals who also need to be rescued on her journey to the chicken factory, including pigs on a sausage truck and cows on a hamburger truck. Henrietta wings her way through rescuing her friends by reading directions and piecing together clues. She keeps here head and reads her way through a complicated security system out of the factory floor, and then looks for clues to help find a farm where she won't be in danger of becoming lunch. She finds a farmer with a subscription to a vegetarian magazine in her mailbox, and because Henrietta is an informed and well-read little hen, she and her friends find a pleasant end to their brush with doom at the vegeterian's organic farm.

You will enjoy the silly puns, word play, and visual humor of this silly tale with an important message about the power of reading. In the story, Henrietta persists in acknowledging the importance of learning to read. Even though her friends tease her for being a little too much of a bookworm (bookhen?), she ignores the teasing and continues to pursue her studies. At the end of the story, Henrietta becomes a reading teacher, reminding everyone of the ill fate that could affect anyone who doesn't know how to read.

The moral of the story? Knowledge is power, and reading is a sure path to knowledge. If you are looking for a perfect Teacher Appreciation Week gift or want to make a meaningful addition to a new teacher's library, consider this book.

Book Design

The illustrations by Herm Auch are vividly colorful, giving the book a wildly over-the-top feeling, The large page size make this an excellent choice for reading aloud, and the vivid pictures are easy to see. The expressions on the faces of the animals are really funny. Take for instance, the looks on the pigs' faces when they learn they are headed for the sausage factory.

The illustrations are loaded with visual jokes, including the names of the books that the hens read at the end of the story. The illustrations complement the text of the story very well. The Auchs make a great collaborative team.

• Farm animals
• Chickens
• Humor
• Reading, importance
• Problem solving
• Organic farming

SouperChicken is an appropriate read-aloud for the Kindergarten and up crowd. Teachers will enjoy the exciting and page-turning plot. The chicken-related wordplay in this story will have you clucking to yourself.

As a read alone storybook, I recommend this book for the average early second grader, where the transition to reading chapter books begins about the middle of the second grade year. This book has a lot of text in its 32 pages, so I don't recommend it for beginning readers, unless the reader has a special interest in chickens.