THE RAIN PUDDLE

This book shares three of the best features of the story of Chicken Little: the doltishness displayed by the animals is immediately obvious to even very young children; the way hysteria is communicated to each of the barnyard inmates is funny; and the story is easy to tell. The bonus extra of the book is in Roger Duvoisin's big, boldly colored pictures, primitive in line, which the format makes easy for showing while telling. The story is very simple. A plump, red hen looks in a rain puddle, sees a plump, red hen peering back at her and alerts all her feathered and four-footed friends, who each stubbornly discover their own doubles trapped in the water. It's a small panic about a small panic.