April 29, 2018

THE GREAT CHICKEN ESCAPE

Nikki McClure continues to showcase her mastery of minimalist children's book illustration and design with her new book The Great Chicken Escape.


This is one of McClure's simpler stories, featuring four chickens fleeing their coop in the Alaska wild. Apart from an author's note at the front of the book, the text is sparse, with no more than three words to a spread, though most of the spreads are actually wordless and are driven by the actions we see in each scene. The action in this book carries readers far, though, with chickens escaping from left to right and back to front on each spread. We see the nuns chasing after the chickens, and it's clear we don't need words to understand the frustration they are feeling as the chickens spend page after page evading the women's nets.

True to form, McClure illustrates this book with her signature cut-paper artwork, and this time she sticks with simple black and white to keep the illustrations as clean and simple as possible. The only spots of color are orange, featured in the minimal text and on the die-cut cover, and the chicken on the cover is actually a huge cut out that is super fun for sticking little hands through. 


The Great Chicken Escape published from Cameron Kids earlier this month!



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