Children's Books: Max's Chocolate Chicken, by Rosemary Wells

When choosing books for young children it is important for parents, guardians and teachers to screen each book for quality and appropriateness. The book should be judged on a number of points. As a parent, for each book you read, you should be assessing whether or not the book is at the appropriate level for your child. Does the book meet your standards in terms of skill in encouraging language development, cognitive development, personality development, and social development.

Max's Chocolate Chicken, by Rosemary Wells, is most appropriate for preschool children from age two to three. Max and his older sister, Ruby, find a chocolate chicken. Ruby creates a contest to determine who gets to keep the chocolate chicken, but Max isn't winning. He eventually disappears and eats the chocolate chicken on his own before reappearing. Ruby was upset that Max had stolen the chicken, but another one magically appeared in the birdbath.

This book would be helpful in language development only because it presents new words and phrases to a young child. As far as cognitive development is concerned, there are only a few items in the story that a child has to observe or remember: Ruby, Max, and the chocolate chicken.

Max's character is appropriately geared toward the personality of this age group, but it does nothing to teach a child about how to act. Max blurts out phrases that make no sense to the story, such as saying "I love you," upon seeing the chocolate chicken in the bird bath. He is inattentive or just plain does not understand the game that his sister has created. He 'finds' everything except the eggs she has decided to look for, but it doesn't seem like he's even looking for the eggs. He then steals the chicken, after playing with numerous other objects and after making "ant-and-acorn pancakes."