about the book
While J.J. Tully is napping, he’s left YOU in charge of keeping The Chicken Squad out of trouble. That probably wasn’t a good idea…
Something “big and scary” has landed in the backyard, and a terrified squirrel barges into the chicken coop looking for help.
Dirt, Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie are not your average chicks. These puffs of fluff are too busy solving mysteries and fighting crime to spend their days pecking chicken feed and chasing bugs.
So Squirrel came to the right place. The problem: Squirrel is NO HELP! He’s in such a panic that his descriptions don’t help The Chicken Squad one bit. After all, “‘Big’ is not a shape…”
Eventually, the chicks figure out that the “big and scary” something is round, shiny, green, and BIG.
Has a UFO landed in the backyard? Dirt, Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie are determined to find out!
about the author
Doreen Cronin was born and raised on Long Island, New York, living with her parents, a sister, and two brothers in a big red house, with a backyard! That’s nice in a city. Her dad was a police officer and a very funny person—Doreen wanted to be a police officer or someone in the FBI when she grew up.
Realizing that those jobs are, in fact, dangerous, Doreen changed her mind. In the first grade she had a teacher named Mrs. Cooper, who told her that she was a writer.
Doreen thinks that Mrs. Cooper maybe—probably—told all of her first graders that, but it didn’t matter. She believed her teacher. She was a writer. She even did extra writing homework to prove it!
Doreen graduated from St. John’s University of Law in 1998 and became a lawyer. During those years she worked on her first book, Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type. It was soon published, and after that Doreen left the law field and decided to write for a living.
Thanks to Mrs. Cooper!
Source:
Author website
Also by Doreen Cronin:
The Case of the Weird Blue Chicken : The Next Misadventure (Chicken Squad Adventure, Book 2). Atheneum Books for Young Readers. 2014.
The Legend of Diamond Lil : A J.J. Tully Mystery. Balzar + Bray. 2012.
The Trouble with Chickens : A J.J. Tully Mystery. Balzar + Bray. 2011.
about the illustrator
Kevin Cornell’s illustrations are hilarious, especially his animals. Where does he get his imagination?
Kevin can’t stand fart jokes or political jokes or jokes about Hollywood stars. He likes jokes about things that everyone experiences. He thinks jokes about animals are the best. In the pages of Marc Barnett’s picture boo,k Count the Monkeys, you’ll find a lot of very funny animal hijinks that Kevin created.
Kevin is an illustrator/designer who works and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Don’t let his website (http://www.v5.bearskinrug.co.uk/contact.php) confuse you; it says co.uk, but he really isn’t British. He says he spends the majority of his time maintaining his website, but he also spends a great deal of time dueling with other designers in web games and drafting imaginary treaties for equally imaginary conflicts. He is also a staff illustrator for the company A List Apart, which is all about designing websites and writing online.
It’s also rumored that he is highly allergic to cashews, but that may be another of Kevin’s jokes.
Sources:
Illustrator website
Illustrator biography: A List Apart
Also illustrated by Kevin Cornell:
The Case of the Weird Blue Chicken : The Next Misadventure (Chicken Squad Adventure, Book 2) by Doreen Cronin. Atheneum Books for Young Readers. 2014.
Shark Kiss, Octopus Hug by Lynn Rowe Reed. Balzer + Bray. June 2014.
The Legend of Diamond Lil : A J.J. Tully Mystery by Doreen Cronin. Balzar + Bray. 2012.
The Trouble with Chickens : A J.J. Tully Mystery by Doreen Cronin. Balzar + Bray. 2011.
Mustache! by Mac Barnett. Hyperion Press. 2011.
read more!
Bunnicula : A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery by James Howe
When the family brings home a new pet bunny with fangs and strange cape-like markings on its back, the family’s cat, Chester, sets out to prove that the bunny (named Bunnicula) is actually a vampire. Can it be true that Bunnicula is a vegetable-sucking vampire?
The Case of the Weird Blue Chicken : The Next Misadventure (Chicken Squad Adventure, Book 2) by Doreen Cronin
Business is booming for The Chicken Squad. When a weird blue bird flies into the squad’s headquarters, Dirt, Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie are in for a huge mystery. There is a house-napper on the loose! Can The Chicken Squad figure out who is up to no good, or will some piece of the puzzle elude them?
The Secret Chicken Society by Judy Cox
When Daniel’s class hatches chicks for a science project, Daniel and his family agree to adopt them. At first they are excited to get their own fresh eggs—until they see all the trouble chickens can get into! Worse still is the fact that Peepers, Daniel’s favorite, turns out actually to be a rooster—and in Portland it is illegal to keep roosters. How can Daniel keep Peepers?