Nora's Chicks

K-Gr 3—After emigrating from Russia to the American plains, Nora misses the familiar landscape of her home and is lonely. When she and her younger brother adopt a stray dog, the dog prefers Milo. Similarly, the cows and horses really belong to her father. When the family acquires some chicks and geese, Nora adopts them as her own, and her father promises not to make dinner of them. The chicks follow her everywhere. After one chick is lost and returned by a girl from the neighboring farm, Nora makes a friend. Through bare-bones prose, MacLachlan visits the same territory of prairie loneliness portrayed in her work for older readers, but with less lyricism. While realistic in its portrayal of the impact of a move, the narrative's slow pacing and limited drama will appeal mainly to patient readers. The sweet expressions and flyaway hair in Brown's watercolors add charm, but the muted palette and basic landscapes surrounding the figures do little to attract readers to MacLachlan's similarly muted narrative. Despite its overall mildness, this longer picture book fills a need for early elementary historical fiction.—Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, Farmington Hills, MI