EXTRAORDINARY WARREN SAVES THE DAY

Any philosophical questions readers ever had about chickens are addressed in this graphic novel.

The loveliest moment in this book is hidden on the copyright page: Warren the chicken and his friend Egg watch a star shoot across the sky. But almost every page has a small, lovely moment if readers look for it: a rodent wearing a derby or a goofy song or a chicken doing gymnastics upside down (even his speech bubble is upside down). It’s important to note that, at one point, a chicken crosses the road. For fans of bad chicken jokes, this book collects nearly all of them (“Your little egg could be in hot water”), and somehow even those moments are endearing. Dillard is so focused on the small details that she lets the story ramble in all directions. But the basic plot can be summed up in two sentences: (1) Warren loses his friend and finds him again. (2) A chicken learns to fly. It goes without saying that the plot is less of a draw than the loopy dialogue, which starts to sound almost like philosophy. Egg asks, “Will you fly to the moon?” and Warren says, “Why not?”

The jokes and the line drawings of chickens are all charming, but even more important: We finally have an answer to “Why did the chicken cross the road?” (Graphic novel. 6-9)