I’ll Be a Chicken Too

PreS-K–In the best “I’ll always love you” fashion, a parade of parents and caregivers of every skin color and age shows the transformations they will take on in the name of keeping up with the children. “If you’re a baby elephant,/ I’ll have to grow a trunk./ And if you’re striped and smelly,/ I suppose I’ll be a skunk.” The scans are imperfect but adorable: “If you’re a slippery snake,/ then I will slither smooth and low./ Or perhaps a little fish?/ Then I’ll be swimming to and fro.” There is a grandfatherly type hanging upside down in a tree, blissfully keeping his small bat charges company, while an elderly woman scampers up a tree, at home among the chimpanzees. Vanderlee’s inventive debut invites repeat readings, while the illustrations by Deas unwind in a loose cartoon style that suits the antic pacing, featuring humans and animals bounding across the pages to an exhausted but happy bedtime finish.