A Crow of His Own [Hardcover]

Clyde is the new rooster at Sunrise Farm. But he’s having trouble fitting in and replacing Larry—the beloved rooster whose wake-up calls were legendary. The cow, the gaggle of hens, and the sheep reminisce about Larry while poor Clyde fails to croon the farmyard awake with the same finesse. Clyde attempts to win over the farm by wearing an elaborate costume and putting on a show like Larry was known to do, but in the end, Clyde realizes that imitating Larry is not the way to succeed.

Awards

SELECTION 2016 - Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices
SELECTION 2016 - Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year
HONOR 2016 - Ezra Jack Keats Book AwardA scrawny young rooster named Clyde tries to fill the big shoes of his predecessor, Larry, in Lambert's verbally dexterous ode to identity. Larry the rooster brought star power to Sunrise Farm. He knew how, in the farmspun words of motherly goose Roberta, to make quite a show of it — it being the morning cock-a-doodle-doo. When Clyde pops from his crate to greet his new farm mates, all bumble-footed and insecure in the shadow of the great Larry, the other animals (minus Roberta) find him wanting: in word bubbles of disappointment, What a worthless chicken. Clyde endeavors to top Larry at Larry's game—two-stepping, riding a unicycle, parachuting into the dawn—and he makes a hash of it, because Clyde isn't Larry. Clyde must find his own voice, and he does so with a little help from Roberta. Where Lambert hoes a row of her own is in the wording of the story. No said or asked makes an appearance. Rather, readers discover stammered and soothed, assured and chirped, mused and fussed. Costello's pen-and-watercolor illustrations are a happy vehicle for the story, with colors from deep in the big crayon box, expressive penwl3-