THE KING’S CHORUS

This amusing, tongue-in-cheek fable stars Kadoodle, a self-centered fowl who believes he is king of the barnyard and the world’s only rooster. An absolute monarch, Kadoodle crows whenever he feels like it—day and night—ignoring entreaties from desperate farm denizens to desist from nighttime crowing. Finally Honketta, the exhausted mother of wakeful goslings, intervenes. Kadoodle is not a lone rooster king, she tells him, but a member of a worldwide rooster network: the king’s chorus. Its mission is to greet the true king of the world each dawn, keeping him awake so that his bright eye, the sun, will stay open and make the corn grow. The ironic text and behavior-modification theme (Honketta’s benign manipulation is reminiscent of James Thurber’s classic Many Moons) may resonate more with weary adults than night-owl youngsters, but Goldfinger’s playful illustrations bridge the generation gap. Haughty Kadoodle holding forth in the barnyard, the sun depicted as a golden rooster’s head and the multicultural feathered choir that greets the king around the globe, all radiate colorful, quirky appeal. (Picture book. 3-7)