Chick by Ed Vere

Chick by Ed Vere
Buy Chick by Ed Vere at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: A pop-up from Ed Vere with his trademark robust colours and endearing characters will be a firm favourite with children and adults. Highly recommended.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 16	Date: March 2009
Publisher: Puffin
ISBN: 978-0141384863
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Here at Bookbag we love Ed Vere. Forget all about pretty books with tepid stories for the younger child and let yourself be taken into a world where the colours are all robust and sometimes shout at each other. Forget about too many words and expect there to be few but for every one to speak volumes. Forget about sighing when a book has to be read again and again - because adults love Ed Vere books just as much as the children.

In a departure from the previous Ed Vere books we've seen here at Bookbag, Chick is a pop-up and it tells the story of the first day in Chick's life. It begins as you might expect with an egg, but this egg has a crack in it and there's a tiny beak poking through. Out comes Chick, wide-eyed and slightly bewildered, with tiny wings trying to reach over the sides of the shell. It's only a moment though before Chick cheeps and boy does he make a noise – it's bigger than Chick himself. It has the desired effect though as it brings Mum running to his side, all long legs and red feathers. I've condensed four brilliant pop-ups to tell you that segment of the story – and it's taken me a lot more words than it takes Ed Vere.

I'm not going to take you step by step through the day as I'm sure that you'll have got the idea. It's gently educational about the hatching of chickens and how they learn to peck at grain by copying the older hens. There's humour too in what Chick does (seemingly endlessly!) after he's eaten – and I'll bet that there won't be a child that doesn't love that page!

As pop-ups go this doesn't have the intricate engineering that some books have but it's all the better for that. It's sufficient to tell the story perfectly without there being too much to go wrong. Small hands find it difficult to resist the allure of a good pop-up and whilst this book is quite robust it won't stand a lot of rough handling, but isn't delicate to the point where it needs to be a book 'that Mummy keeps'.

It's a delight to share with a child. There's fun and laughter on every page and a great deal to talk about. It's all been done on the basis of 'opportunities to ask' rather than information being force-fed and I think you'll be surprised at quite how wide-ranging the discussion can be, even with a young child.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

For another favourite book about eggs we can recommend The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett.

Chick by Ed Vere is in the Top Ten Books For Children Who Think That Farts Are Funny.

Chick by Ed Vere is in the Bookbag's Easter Eggs.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Chick by Ed Vere at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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