My Name Is Chicken Joe


Hi!  My name is...  What?  My name is...  Huh?  Chicken Joe?  Alrighty then. 

THREE PROS
*Spoiler alert: the story is pretty much garbage, but the included CD is actually quite good  
*I suppose since the pair retails at $17, you can write off the book as a free bonus gift
*Did I mention that the band performing all of the songs is called Trout Fishing in America -- now that's about as certified badass as kiddo music group monikers get

THREE CONS 
*Other than serving as a consolation to children whose parents have stuck them with awful names, I don't really see the point to any of this (total gibberish is fine for a song, but it doesn't work for a book) 
*While the first track on the album is given the usual school-age book spacing, the other twelve are condensed onto one page each and given an accompanying picture -- thus you could be forced to read an entire CD's worth of lyrics to your son or daughter if you can't figure out a way out of that predicament 
*Could have done without the songwriting attributions in the main text since the same three or four people were involved with the whole thing

ONE DAD'S OPINION
My son and I read MNICJ together tonight and there were at least two times where we both looked at each other in bewilderment.  As I said above, the book makes very little sense and has no real plot to speak of.  [I should mention that Stephane Jorisch's illustrating was nice enough.]  Once he went to bed, I flipped through it one more time to gather my thoughts for this review and noticed the CD sleeve glued to the inside back cover.  After popping it in my laptop's media player, I literally changed my tune from Destroy to Donate.  If the music had been just okay or if the book was priced a little higher, I don't think I would have been able to give it the benefit of the doubt.  Final verdict: for all of you who have a moral compass that might be a little broken, I suggest you check out the book, snake the CD, and return the glorified jewel case it came in.  For everyone else, head over to iTunes and buy one of their over 20 albums listed there
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Buy / Borrow / DONATE / Destroy



1 comment:

Artie Bennett said...

Hi, Erik. I appreciate the bluntness of your reviews. You don't pussyfoot around. I'm the author of two superfun picture books, The Butt Book and Poopendous! The latter is newly out, and I'd love for you to review it . . . if you dare. Please get in touch. I'm artie@artiebennett.com. Thank you!