Peggy: A Brave Chicken on a Big Adventure

After a gust of wind transports her to the big city, suburban chicken Peggy explores her new surroundings. Walker's ink and photo-collage art is full of clever details that add levity to the story. The subtle color palette remains constant, regardless of Peggy's surroundings, exuding a calm throughout that is emulated by the varied illustration formats, the text, and Peggy herself.

A charming story about the comforts of home—and the sometimes unexpected joys of going outside one’s comfort zone. As Peggy tries on shoes, rides an escalator, and twirls spaghetti, young readers will delight in the silliness of a hen at large in the city, while relating to the pleasure she takes in each new discovery. Anna Walker’s watery inks perfectly capture a city on a blustery, rainy day. Walker also uses photo collage to great effect, evoking Peggy’s sensory overload as she wanders, for example, past numerous shop windows. Two spreads—filled with illustrated Polaroids of Peggy’s daily life from before and after her adventure—bookend the story. They offer readers a fun opportunity to point out differences and underline the importance of finding the right balance between old comforts and new experiences.

Peggy the chicken spends her days eating, performing acrobatics on a trampoline, and watching pigeons. When one day a big gust of wind transports her from her suburban backyard home to the big city, she is certainly a chicken out of the coop. But Peggy is resilient and unfazed despite the change of scenery, exploring her new human-filled surroundings by strutting up and down rainy city streets discovering such things as electronics, tasty-looking food, and even a comfortable chair. When Peggy feels homesick, she follows some sunflowers "like the one in her yard" onto a train back to the 'burbs and, with a little help from the pigeons, finds her way home, where life returns almost to normal. Australian artist Walker's ink and photo collage art is full of nice touches: she captures Peggy's daily routine in Polaroid snapshots; she adds photo collage to the city scenes; the water blots in the colored ink connect with the rainy weather; and many other clever details in the art add levity to the story. The subtle color palette remains constant, regardless of Peggy's surroundings, exuding a calm throughout that is emulated by the varied illustration formats, the text, and Peggy herself. Similar in concept to Elisha Cooper's Beaver Is Lost (rev. 7/10) and with the same indomitable spirit as Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken (rev. 11/08) by Kate DiCamillo and Harry Bliss, Peggy is the relatable story of an unusual hen who enriches her life by stepping outside her comfort zone. cynthia k. ritter