Children's Corner: Interrupting Chicken

My daughter's favorite knock-knock joke is the one about the interrupting chicken.  Unfortunately, she inherited my joke telling skills, so it's the only one she can tell.  When I saw a book called Interrupting Chicken in the Scholastic catalog, I knew we had to have it.

Little chicken is having trouble falling to sleep because her bed time stories need to be fixed... if the characters just knew the rules they wouldn't get into such sticky situations.  Every time her father starts to read a story, Chicken jumps in and teaches the character's a life lesson, which will save them all from the trouble they're about to get into.  For example, when Little Red meets the wolf, Chicken jumps in and yells, "don't talk to strangers, so she didn't the end!"  Finally when Papa is out of stories, Chicken puts him to sleep.

My daughter has entered the "I know more than/better than you" phase so I'd like to think it gives her perspective on what it's like when someone constantly challenges everything.  I also like that Chicken sums up the moral of the fairy tale stories so succinctly; sometimes I wonder if I dwell on explaining stories too much and this makes light of the situations without trivializing them.

More importantly, however, this story gives us the giggles.  And we love a good giggle.