"There Was an Old Woman
There was an old woman
who lived in a shoe.
She had so many -
Cookies, she gave me a few!
Why do you live in a shoe? Isn't
it stinky?
Not when I bake cookies!
Ha! Ha!"
In this third book about Interrupting Chicken, the day begins early. It's much too early for Papa. Chicken brings cookies for breakfast in bed. Papa will not be fooled by this blatant ploy. He's still tired and he would rather sleep. But he does respond to the second of his chick's wishes. He will read a book.
The two cuddle up with a book of nursery rhymes.
"Papa be nimble,
Papa be quick,
Papa read to your little chick."
Chicken is well-known for interrupting, as all fans will well know. So, they begin ... only to be interrupted in the reading again and again by an exuberant little one who loves to rhyme, and to include in those rhymes the cookies so dearly coveted. Listeners love the 'book within a book' illustrations that David Stein uses to tell his grand stories.
Try as Chicken might, Papa does not succumb to constant reminders of the cookies wanted desperately for any meal of the day. Cookies are not meals; they are snacks! While Papa does his best to try again to get a little shut-eye before breakfast, Chicken has one last surprise. Then, Papa (now hungry himself) has one of his own.
Artwork is created in 'watercolor, water-soluble crayon, china marker, pen, opaque white ink, and tea'. The scenes with Papa and Chicken are rich with color and full of warm details, while the nursery-rhyme pages are drawn as cartoons with only Chicken drawing attention in full color.
David Ezra Stein proves once again how well he knows the persistence and interruptions that come from living with young children. Here again, he offers a book that is fun to read at any of the day.
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