The Chicken Dance by Jacques Couvillon

[jlb]

This is one to read. I really enjoyed Don Schmidt, his chickens, their dancing and all the metaphorical dancing that takes place.

Of the possible Newbery books that I have read this year, it is a frontrunner. However, I do have 2 concerns regarding this book. One is for the audience. Don is 11-years-old. Generally the reader would be about 9 or 10. However, there are a couple of small, but more adult activities that take place in the story, {spoiler warning} specifically nightclub dancing and an affair.

The other concern is about all the TV shows that are referred to. Don was born the same year that I was, so I remember all the TV shows he refers to. It was nostalgic for me. But I wonder if this would be lost on today's reader.

[Interested Reader]

I'm glad I read this book because I think it will lead to some great discussion. I can't say I "enjoyed" it, because I felt so overwhelmingly sad for Don throughout the entire book. I guess the fact that it impacted me so strongly speaks well of the strength of character development in this novel.

[meredith]

The Chicken Dance has a lot of great things going for it. The unusual setting and subject matter as well as Don's insatiable love of chickens make it memorable. And from the very beginning there is a feeling that's something going on just beneath the surface of the family -- something unsaid that is about to boil over.

But, unfortunately, the author pulls so many of his punches that the story doesn't live up to its potential. A character who should have been a stripper is toned down into something completely bizarre. The raw hostility between Don's parents to smoothed over too much as is their indifference towards him.
Perhaps the author was attempting to mold a Jr. High or YA story to fit a tween audience?

Too many of the elements are unbelievable, and most of the explanations and character motivations given are weak. There is a major plot hole in regards to Don not knowing that his first name is really Stanley because he would have to be registered for school under his legal name.

On top of everything that happens to him and around him, Don isn't portrayed as being a particularly sharp knife, and by the end of the book, the reader is pitying Don rather than rooting for him. Don's greatest triumph doesn't even really help him, which makes the end of the story even sadder.