Chickens are inherently funny. Four hundred and fifty-six of them are hilarious. Add in their owner and his partner/husband who are trying to wrangle the pesky birds, a nonsense song that your children will love to repeat (you’ve been warned), drawings with fun details to discover, and a perfectly paced narrative, and you have all the makings of a children’s book hit.
Mr. Watson’s Chickens, by Jarrett Dapier (Chronicle Books), begins with Mr. Watson and Mr. Nelson in their big house with a tiny yard in the big city. Mr. Watson starts sensibly by keeping three chickens. The chickens keep breeding, however, and soon 456 semi-anthropomorphic chickens overrun the house and the yard. Then a chicken named Aunt Agnes makes up a song that she sings all the time: “Shooby-doo!!!/Wonky-pow!!!/Bawka-bawka/in da chow-chow!!!” Mr. Nelson starts getting annoyed, even though he loves cooking eggs for Mr. Watson.
Finally, however, Mr. Nelson has had enough, and threatens to move into the coop out back. In a poignant moment, we read, “Mr. Watson loved his chickens, but he loved Mr. Nelson more. Without him, his heart would be a broken egg.” The men hatch a plan to bring the chickens to the county fair and find them good homes. On the way, however, the chickens escape and run amok, leading to more escapades, more of Aunt Agnes’ singing, a happy solution, and a surprise twist that I won’t spoil.
Dapier, a young adult librarian at the Skokie Public Library, is clearly steeped in what makes a good children’s book. He knows how to balance frenetic action with moments of calm, to wield rhythm and repetition and onomatopoeia, and to create a story that despite its silliness, also has an underlying heart. (He also received the 2016 John Phillip Immroth Award from the American Library Association for his work exposing book censorship in the Chicago Public Schools.)
Illustrator Andrea Tsurumi brings her own considerable skill to bear, with illustrations of more than 400 chickens across the pages, flapping, juggling, swimming, somersaulting, and even playing maracas. Some pages are chaotically full of fowl and will keep kids (and adults) coming back to find new things in them. Other pages zoom in on Mr. Watson and Mr. Nelson, lovingly showing their bond. Mr. Watson is White; Mr. Nelson Asian, and their community is multiracial.
It’s a good story by any measure, and even better because, as the publisher notes in the book blurb, “This book features a gay couple at its center, but doesn’t call specific attention to it. It simply portrays a healthy relationship between two men (and their chickens!).” We need more of this sort of thing.
Despite not calling attention to it, though, there’s actually a lot of queer content here. Careful readers will note that Mr. Watson and Mr. Nelson’s house has both a rainbow flag and a transgender flag on the porch, though whether the trans flag is in allyship or because one of them is trans is unknown. (Read it as you wish.) Other same-sex couples and gender creative people can be detected in some of the crowd scenes. And an “official-looking lady” at the county fair has short hair and a masculine appearance—but again, with no special attention drawn to her gender expression. She’s just a part of this world. Finally, small background portraits in two scenes depict the Frog and Toad characters from the classic books, along with acclaimed Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson, hinting “at the history of queer creators in children’s literature,” as Publisher’s Weekly notes.
Mr. Watson’s Chickens and its inspired zaniness is bound to engage and delight young readers of all identities and types of families, however. Flap over to your nearest bookstore or library and get it today.
