cover image Flora and the Chicks

Flora and the Chicks

Molly Idle. Chronicle, $9.99 (20p) ISBN 978-1-4521-4657-7

Idle brings her balletic heroine Flora to a younger audience in this nearly wordless board book that finds the girl struggling to keep up with a nestful of hatching chickens. As the book counts up to 10 (the numbers are the book’s only text, other than “The End”), children can open page-size flaps to follow the unfolding action. Clad in red overalls and a kerchief, Flora is as graceful as ever, lunging and dipping with élan as she gathers up the not-easily-gathered chicks, whose first steps and tussles offer gentle laughs throughout. Count on multiple readings. Up to age 3. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Mar.)