Three Hens and a Peacock

Author: Lestor L. Laminack

Illustrator: Henry Cole

PEACHTREE Publications, 2012
30 Pages

Genre: Fiction

     I chose this book because of the beautiful cover art. It is very eye catching, but more on that later. The Tucker's farm was nice and quiet until...a peacock falls out of a truck putting by down a peaceful country road. The peacock is a little stunned and doesn't really know what to do, so he walks down to the road near the "Fresh Produce" sign. The peacocks pretty plumes get the attention of the passengers traveling down the road. People would stop to get a closer look and for days this went on. As people stopped to see this pretty bird, they would buy tomatoes and eggs, and this made Farmer Tucker very happy. However, there were some that weren't happy at all about this newcomer. The three chickens who provided Farmer Tucker with his eggs didn't understand what all the fuss was about. In the hen house, they fussed and fussed about the peacock and his flashy feathers-and the peacock heard everything. They had said that he wasn't contributing to the farm like they were. This made him very sad. They decided that they would switch jobs! This ends in disastrous and very humorous results!
     
     The illustrations in this book are so pretty! They are done in watercolor, ink, and colored pencil. I think the mixed mediums makes for very interesting art on each page. The colors are very saturated and mostly primary colors. They are also very warm, consisting reds and oranges. It perfectly depits a sleepy country farm. The pages vary from spanning across the 2 page spread and containing the illustration on the same page of text it goes with.

     There are many possibilties for this book being used in the classroom. This could be used to prompt a narrative writting lesson on visiting a farm. Discussing the book could also lead to a conversation about how everyone is important and  contributes to the "team" of a household, a classroom, or a farm.