Watch Me Grow: Chickens

Sara Forster is a children's book editor based in West Sussex. Having spent much of her childhood in the Middle East and South Africa, she developed a love of wildlife from a young age. Sara is a keen scuba diver and has a passion for teaching children about the environment and the natural world. Bianca Austria is a painter, illustrator, and designer. As an avid traveller, she loves to illustrate her experiences through a whimsical lens. Her work visually narrates her curious and wondrous exploration of the world. As a way of expressing her pride and joy of being a Filipina, she particularly enjoys subjects inspired by her own memories of the Philippines.

A fluffy white hen guides her newly hatched chicks around the farm, leading readers through the life of a chicken in this installment in the new Watch Me Grow series. Text in large print makes for an easy-to-follow story about the birds going about their day; additional smaller text provides more details, allowing the reader to choose how much information to share depending on the audience. Most illustrations span a two-page spread of sweet farm scenes of animals and a diverse cast of farmhands, ending with a leading statement that's completed with the turn of the page-"but this chicken isn't alone . . . she is with her flock!"- making this a good nonfiction selection to share at storytime. The chicken family is stylized and appealing for the picture-book crowd, and accurate depictions of chicken breeds are featured on the endpapers. Fans of thischarming nonfiction introduction to animals are likely to enjoy the frog and butterfly life-cycle installments in the series as well.