Chicken Joy on Redbean Road: A Bayou Country Romp

by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, Melissa Sweet (Illustrator)

Overview

When people danced to Joe Beebee’s music they forgot about bad knees, tight shoes, backaches, blisters, and beetles . . . They forgot sickness, sadness, and sin. Joe Beebee’s music, folks say, will take you up so high, your problems look small enough to stomp on. But, worries a plain brown hen, can it make a quiet rooster sing? Can it save her best friend from becoming Quiet Rooster Stew? Will Joe Beebee even play for chickens?

With art as fun as waltzing on the moon and with words as lively as a fiddle, this book captures the power of music to heal and of friendship to endure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547595573
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	04/09/2007
Sold by:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	45 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jacqueline Briggs Martin is the author of Snowflake Bentley, winner of the 1999 Caldecott Medal, and The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish, an ALA Notable Book, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book, Riverbank Review Finalist, Notable Social Studies Trade book and winner of The Golden Kite Award for Illustration. She grew up on a farm in Maine much like the one in this story. She lives in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
Melissa Sweet is the Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator of many fine children’s books including Balloons Over Broadway, a Sibert winner, and The Right Word and A River of Words, both Caldecott Honors. Reviewers have described her unique mixed-media illustrations as “exuberant,” “outstanding,” and “a creative delight.” Melissa lives on the beautiful coast of Maine. In addition to writing and painting, she enjoys gardening, hiking, biking, and cross-country skiing. For more information about the author and her work, visit www.melissasweet.net.

Editorial Reviews

Everybody in St. Cecilia Parish knows of Joe Beebee. "His music set empty shoes to dancing." The blue-headed rooster on Mrs. Miser Vidrine's chicken house roof frequently crows along with the music. Miss Cleoma, the plain brown hen, dances along. But after he gets the measles, the rooster just cannot manage to crow at all. To keep him from being cooked in rooster stew, Miss Cleoma goes down Redbean Road for help, a trip we can follow on the included map. As Mrs. Miser prepares the broth for the stew, Miss Cleoma and Joe Beebee are collecting a crowd for a bal de maison in the yard. Joe plays, everyone dances, and finally the rooster comes out, inspired, to crow again. Luckily there is vegetable stew for all, and a happy ending for the hen, the rooster, and Joe Beebee. This foot-stompin' tale demands visuals with the local flavor. Sweet incorporates found objects in mixed-media collages to dress up the scenes. A bit cartoony in their depiction, the rooster and hen set their comic actions in small and full-page illustrations and vignettes leading to the final swinging, dancing climax. We can almost hear the music as Joe Beebee plays and as the hen dances across the endpapers. The author adds a note about the music for further study.

Children's Literature - Ken Marantz

PreS-Gr 2
Louisiana life is good for a sonorous-voiced rooster with a blue head and the brown hen named Miss Cleoma. That is, until a bad bout of chicken measles steals the rooster's crow and makes him ripe for Mrs. Miser's "silent rooster stew." A desperate Miss Cleoma two-steps a "rooster-in-danger dance" down the road, seeking help from Mr. Joe Beebee, the best musician around. Meanwhile, Mrs. Miser's attempts to grab her ax to deal with the rooster are delayed as farmyard animals pitch veggies in front of her (think of the Greek myth of Atalanta and the Golden Apples) that simply must go into the stew first. Mr. Joe Beebee comes to the rescue, gathering neighbors and musicians who converge on Mrs. Miser's house ready to create a music-filled party. The rooster is inspired to crow, Mrs. Miser sells her "seven-vegetable stew" to partygoers, and good times ("Bons temps! ") are had by all. Saturated in Cajun and Creole cadences and sensibilities, this rollicking, multilayered tale is at once lyrical and tongue-in-cheek funny. The playful illustrations are a clever mix of collage and bright watercolors that feature varying perspectives and impressively expressive poultry. The spreads are overlaid with panels of handmade paper containing the pictures, with chickens dancing a red-dotted trail over, under, and around them. The sheer insouciance of both text and art will have readers dancing the two-step and sharing that chicken joy as well.
—Marge Loch-WoutersCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Saturated in Cajun and Creole cadences and sensibilities, this rollicking, multilayered tale is at once lyrical and tongue-in-cheek funny. The playful illustrations are a clever mix of collage and bright watercolors that feature varying perspectives and impressively expressive poultry. . . . The sheer insouciance of both text and art will have readers dancing the two-step and sharing that chicken joy as well.
School Library Journal

Fine turns of phrase, and Sweet's mixed-media illustrations . . . have a bouyancy that elevates the text.
Booklist, ALA

In a text that is at the same time eloquent and hilarious, Martin creates a rousing barnyard tale into which she skillfully interweaves the story of fictional musician Joe Beebee, recounting his childhood love of music and his attempts to fashion his own instrument from a cigar box and an old screen door. . . . [Sweet's] lively illustrations, employing collage and found objects, are the perfect complement to this lyrical Louisiana tale of good music and good friends.
Kirkus Reviews, Starred

*STARRED REVIEW* With its unquestioned animal/human interaction and its repetition, this story, in Martin's quietly lyrical prose, has a folklike flavor. . . . The illustrations are a tasty stew in their own right; line, watercolor, and collage create a quirky world wherein cuddly, globose chickens utter Cajun exclamations in speech bubbles and chat readily with sharp-featured humans; compositions vary inventively, employing techniques such as comic-strip panels and overhead views. . . . There's just something irresistible about a good chicken story.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher