The Life Cycle of a Chicken (Life Cycles) - Softcover

Lisa Trumbauer is the New York Times best-selling author of A Practical Guide to Dragons. In addition, she has written about 300 other books for children, including mystery novels, picture books, and nonfiction books on just about every topic under the sun (including the sun!).

Kindergarten-Grade 1-Though the vocabulary is accurate and appropriate, the text is so simplistic that misconceptions are bound to occur. The text implies that the egg breaks open by itself and then the chick hatches. It accurately states that the chick is covered with down, but readers are led to believe that it remains in this condition until six weeks of age, at which time it grows long feathers-they actually start appearing by the time the chick is a week old. The coverage of mating is adequate and the fact that the hen lays one egg is correct, but the text does not explain that it is one egg per day. A hen is not likely to try to hatch just one egg at a time. The text also fails to mention why it is necessary for the hen to sit on her eggs to keep them warm. Each of the large-print pages faces a good-quality, full-page color photo, which corresponds to the text. However, beginning readers deserve better information.
Eldon Younce, Harper Elementary School, KS
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