In honor of a legendary place, I'm taking on three reviews at once. Think I can do it?
All take place in rural Loozyanna, where my mother lived briefly in her 20s, and where locals used to feel the top of her head for horns.
They're a bold, brash, bigger-than-life people, alright, and not afraid to embrace myths, superstitions and the like--though, as in the above example, maybe not always so charmingly.
Still, three new picture books capture the best of the Bayou, from the bouncy, punctuated rhythms of their speech, their love of fast music and sloooow cooking, and the outlandish, outsized similes and metaphors that pepper their conversation.
The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County
by Hanice N. Harrington; illustrated by Shelly Jackson
This chicken chaser's by far the funniest and most evocative of the three books, capturing a little girl at the moment her penchant for mischief collides smack into her big, Creole heart. (See definitions of Creole and Cajun.)
Big Mama tells the African American girl not to chase chickens, "If you make those girls crazy, they won't lay eggs." But the girl is THE best chicken chaser around. Only one hen still eludes her: "Miss Hen is as fast as a mosquito buzzing and quick as a fleabite."
There's more language like that, plenty more, as the girl lays her various traps and connives to get her mischevious mitts on her fleet-footed nemesis. There's no factory farm here, either--this is a trip back to a folksy, rural past where chickens made their nests where they pleased, and where they might hide their eggs from those troublesome human chicks.
Jackson mixes painting and fabric collage to concoct chickens with striped or plaid plumage or shadows with woven textures, for example, for a healthy dollop of lunacy that matches the colorful narration.
Rating: *\*\*\*\
Chicken Joy on Redbean Road: A Bayou Country Romp
by Jacqueline Briggs Martin; illustrated by Melissa Sweet
The aptly named Miser Vidrine has no use for a rooster who can't crow, and the other birds must hatch a plan to save the blue-headed roo from becoming the featured ingredient in stew.
His best friend, the plain brown Miss Cleoma, sets out to find Joe Beebee, a fiddler whose music is said to take folks "up so high their worries looked small enough to stomp on."
But can she find him before the ax falls? And is it true he won't play for chickens? She has only one thing going for her, besides, um, her pluck: she does the finest two-step in St. Cecilia parish.
There's enough suspense here for a dozen such stories, and an ending sure to please vegetarians and chicken rights activists, plus anybody else who likes proud roosters. It's a lively variation on the helping-friends-in-need plot, with Cajun details so expertly woven in that you never notice how much you're learning.
But you won't be blamed for wanting the recipe for that rooster-less stew.
Sweet's joyous watercolors, the blend of French expressions and Paul-Bunyan-sized metaphors and, of course, those crazy chickens all make for a delightful gumbo of a story.
Rating: *\*\*\
Virginnie's Hat
by Dori Chaconas; illustrated by Holly Meade
Virginnie promptly loses her new sunhat to a breeze, and sets off into the bayou to find it. While she's busy trying to knock it out of a tree, a series of swamp creatures set their sights on her delicious-looking bare feet.
How she avoids danger--without ever realizing it--makes for a tickling read that even young kids will giggle over. Meade soaked papers in great gobs of drippy watercolor and then cut out the shapes of critters and great, hulking, vine-choked trees. The bright colors keep the scenes from getting scary.
Rating: *\*\*\
