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Cheep! Cheep!
by Julie Stiegemeyer
Illustrated by Carol Baicker-Mckee
Bloomsbury, 2006
Category: Fiction picture book
Seven little words. Seven. That's all. Repeated and woven together to create a satisfying beginning-middle-end in only 41 words, all rhyming with the title, Cheep! Cheep!. Little homogeneous four-word groups take turns as the story unfolds with the judicious use of exclamation marks, question marks, and no marks at all. What a feat.
The illustrations are photographs of the most adorable three-dimensional terry-cloth chickens. You can't help but smile at the cover, and the warm fuzzies continue---both on the page and off---throughout the ten spreads, as the birds eagerly anticipate (cheep?) and witness (eep!) the hatching of an egg, and welcome the hatchling into the "heap".
Made of medium-weight cardboard a little heavier than a manilla file folder, the pages are reminiscent of a board book, but the rhyming text and larger page size give it more of a picture book feel. Smart move, Bloomsbury. It'll withstand overly-loving toddler hands and new readers won't feel like "babies" as they enjoy quick success cruising through the rhymes. In fact, this would make a great book for a 6-year-old to read to a 3-year-old sibling. It caters to the attention of both.
Fun. Friendly. Beautifully designed and executed. Clever.
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