Interrupting Chicken

Interrupting Chicken, by David Ezra Stein. Candlewick Press, 2010.


Stein’ picture book, Interrupting Chicken is a charming story of a father and child who sit down to read a bedtime story together. The well-known stories that the father begins are never finished as just at the storybook characters approach the conflict, the little red chicken jumps out to save the characters from danger, and finishes the story early. Clever illustrations place the little red chicken directly into the book that is being read by the father.
This tale is a prime example of metafiction in both the embedded fairy tale stories that are being read to the little red chicken for bed time as well as the inclusion of the little red chicken as a character in each story. Not only are these details included in the text of the story, but are vividly included in the illustrations as well.