Publishers Weekly Starred
Review
Pulsating to a high-energy beat, Wattenberg's (Mrs. Mustard's Baby Faces) super-charged photo collages and playful prose put a high-five hip-hop spin on an old favorite. In this waggish rendition, Henny-Penny is one funky chicken with her feathers in a flap. Bonked on the head by an acorn, she’s convinced the sky is falling and rushes off to tell the king. She departs from her home, which Wattenberg sets near Stonehenge, and picks up such bodacious barnyard friends as “that GLAM GAL Goosey Loosey and that HE-HUNK Gander-Lander” near the leaning Tower of Pisa as well as, of course, “that MEAN ball of fur, Foxy-Loxy” by the Parthenon. While Wattenberg’s words “shake rattle and roll” to a jive rhythm (“throw in the towel, Fowl, thought Foxy Loxy as he considered the FINE DINNER coming his way”), her eye-popping blend of surrealism, pop art and sheer visual shenanigans (the “king” signpost is hilarious) is nothing short of breathtaking. With an eye for the sublimely ridiculous, she jumps from close-ups of the bright-eyed birds to wide-angIe vistas to speciaI-effects shots (such as Henny- Penny leaping from the fox’s den in a blur). This fine-feathered picture book rocks. Ages 4-7.