The energetic, comical illustrations, in Boynton’s signature style, will elicit giggles and go far to make the book’s important point. This riotous book hits all the right notes and does so succinctly and hilariously. So forgive yourself, chickens! But the best thing is…instead of relying on someone else-like a chicken-to strengthen your ego, say a generous daily “WOO HOO!” to yourself. That alone is a pep talk, enhanced by the wisdom that making mistakes allows everyone to learn and demonstrate they did their best. But what if your cheerful chick errs and doesn’t do what it set out to do? Don’t worry-your cheery chicken just needs a reminder that everyone makes mistakes. Your feathered champion will be right there, encouraging you all the way, with a loud “WOO HOO!” that’ll keep you going and remove any doubt you’re super terrific. What’s better than a cheerleading chicken?Īre you ever blue, unsure, tired, or overworked? Do you ever feel lost or overwhelmed? This uplifting book, expressed in delightful, jaunty verse, explains how to lift your spirits pronto: What you need is a booster chicken telling you’re doing great even when you’re not so confident, as when you’re learning or practicing a new skill, for instance.

Leonardo and Sam appear mostly in the corners of vast blank spreads, the showbiz typeface (all caps) emphasizing the theatricality of it all. The highly predictable ending is made fresh by the superb control of pacing, just-zany-enough sense of humor and body language readers have come to expect from the creator of Pigeon and Knufflebunny. and scare the tuna salad out of him!” Exhaustive research yields Sam, who, in a double-page-spread torrent of words, explains why he’s so miserable he cries when Leonardo tries to scare him: “MY MEAN BIG BROTHER STOLE MY ACTION FIGURE !” The instant connection between the two is the very definition of sympathy, and Leonardo and Sam proceed to become fast friends. Realizing that he doesn’t possess the ideal monster attributes (1,642 teeth, enormous size or utter weirdness), Leonardo resolves to find “the most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world. With a palette straight from the endpapers of Where the Wild Things Are, and postures not a little reminiscent of Max, Willems crafts a sweetly original morality play about a very unscary monster.

Leonardo the terrible