The Chickens Are Coming!

Inspired by chicken-owning families in Brooklyn, Samuels (Fred’s Beds) offers a genial domestic cartooned comedy with an underlying lesson about appreciating living creatures. “You don’t need to live in the country to raise chickens!” Mommy declares brightly after spotting a lamppost ad by someone wanting to unload five hens. And just like that, Winston and Sophie’s city-dwelling family builds a backyard coop and becomes the proud owners of Dawn (a Cochin), Desirée (Cuckoo Marans), Divina (Rhode Island Red), Delilah (Cream Legbar), and Daphne (an exotically coiffed Polish). The hens generate a lot of poop, but the fresh eggs the family so eagerly anticipates? Fuhgeddaboudit. Samuels gets excellent comic mileage by drawing her hens as unblinkingly unflappable, even in the face of the children’s gambits to get them to lay eggs. But the family’s frustration melts as they grow to understand the chickens as not just egg generators, but also as vivid individuals: “Desirée was the best flier. Delilah was the most curious. Divina was bossy. Dawn was shy. And Daphne bumped into things.” The smidgen of dramatic tension near the end is almost beside the point—this one is really about two species finding common ground. Ages 4–8. [em](Mar.) [/em]