Lena the Chicken (But Really a Dinosaur!)
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- USD 10.99
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- USD 10.99
Publisher Description
THREE STARRED REVIEWS! • Chicken Run meets Tiny T. Rex in this funny farmyard tale of a feisty chicken who is sure she is a dinosaur!
Includes a die-cut cover — and back matter about how chickens (and all other birds) are the living descendants of dinosaurs!
Lena lives in a chicken coop, and she looks a lot like a chicken. But deep down, she’s convinced that she’s a . . . DINOSAUR! She can feel it in her bones. Lena just doesn’t understand the scaredy chickens in her family, and they don't understand her either, with her ferociousness and big ideas. The people on the farm are also baffled . . . except for little Madeline, who thinks Lena has PERSONALITY.
And then, when a dastardly weasel turns up and threatens the coop, Lena's fearful family chickens out AGAIN. It's up to Lena to unleash her inner dinosaur like never before — to save the coop and show this silly bunch of chickens how to stand up for themselves. And when Madeline's science fair project shows that chickens are the closest living relatives in the world to dinosaurs, Lena’s family finally starts to see that — holy hen house! — they are all dinosaurs too!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Convinced she's descended from mighty dinosaurs, fierce fowl protagonist Lena is sure that her avian family is "a bunch of big chickens," an opinion helped along by the advice they give: "Aim LOW and you'll never be disappointed." Of the farm's human caretakers, only young Madeline, portrayed with dark hair and pink skin, appreciates Lena's spirit: "She has PERSONALITY! I like her!" When a sneaky, magnificently whiskered weasel arrives and infiltrates the coop, Lena taps into something "way down deep inside her bones and DNA." And as the spirits of dinosaur ancestors seem to swirl about her in pale blue hues, she goes full terrible lizard, unleashing a "KKRRAAAGGGHH!!" that both routs the predator and brings her fellow chickens around ("She really IS a dinosaur! She really IS!"). Lena is further vindicated when Madeline returns from school having learned that chickens are indeed "one of the closest living relatives in the WHOLE WORLD to a dinosaur." Gloriously goofy pencil and watercolor illustrations by Steele (That Always Happens Sometimes) and theatrical dialogue from Bailey (Cinderella—with Dogs!) imbue Lena with delicious levels of gravitas across a triumphant, fully fleshed-out work that delivers important observations about honoring one's nature. A contextualizing note concludes. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3–7.
