Danger! Escape! Mean urban streets! Heroism! Community! Wacky but warm-hearted words from Pinkwater! A Yiddish-speaking chicken escapes her Friday-night-dinner doom and wanders through streets of Brooklyn that are filled with tall buildings, rats, buses and selfish pigeons. When she saves a lovely green bird from a cat, the grateful flock of wild parrots adopts her as their loving leader, and she becomes their doting mother. Really! The breathlessly ingenuous narration is all in English, and the conversations are in Yiddish (for the chicken) and Spanish (for the parrots)—translated and transliterated in speech bubbles. It’s a very funny and spirited story that everyone can read aloud in English. Honestly! Jill Pinkwater’s brightly colored cartoon illustrations on a white background imbue each animal with personality, while the page layout moves readers briskly through fast-paced action sequences. A delicious, loopy romp to savor whether it’s Friday or not. Truly! (Picture book. 3-7)
