Booklist - 01/01/2010 When seven hungry chicks cry for food, Mama Bird happily ventures into the dangerous world to retrieve a bit of nourishment. The bad news? That still leaves six hungry chicks. So out she goes again, this time for a cherry, then a bread crust. With each return, the unfed chicks get increasingly riled, while the harried mother gets increasingly exhausted. Though Fleming’s rhyming scheme is ambitious, it’s ironclad in its meter and well positioned upon the page. Young listeners will be chanting along almost immediately: “Four hungry babies fret, sulk, and pout. ‘Feed us! Feed us!’ the little ones shout. / ‘Hush, you little egg-crackers,’ Mama Bird coos, ‘and I’ll fly to the garden to find you more food.’” The countdown element is irresistible—the number of hungry chicks decreases right along with Mama Bird’s energy. Though the gouache art is a little plain, it humorously returns to the same composition for each round of feeding. Just the thing to turn a large-group read-aloud into a frenzied chicken coop. - Copyright 2010 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 02/01/2010 PreS-Gr 1— In this bouncy, onomatopoeic tale, a mother bird coos as she flies hither and yon to bring back delicacies to feed her newly hatched chicks. With a "flappa-flap, swoop-swoop, zoom-zoom, YUM!" the increasingly frazzled mama shuttles back and forth, leaving one satisfied and sleeping chick each time, until the whole nestful is napping—but wait, they're all awake and hungry again. In the satisfying conclusion, Mama turns to resting Daddy to take over the catering chores. Fleming's playful text features endearments that will tickle listeners ("precious cuddle fluffs"; "little egg-crackers") and a rhythm that sweeps the story along. The fresh gouache illustrations are awash in blues and white with fire-bright red and yellow birds and feature expressive faces on the avian stars. With unexpected perspectives as well as text that sometimes nestles, sometimes swoops across the page, this book is perfect for group storytimes and one-on-one reading.—Marge Loch-Wouters, La Crosse Public Library, WI - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2010 Seven baby birds have just hatched, and boy, are they hungry! Fortunately for them, Mama Bird is prepared to fly off and find some food; unfortunately for them, she is only able to find enough for one bird on each trip away from the nest. In this creatively crafted, loosely rhyming tale, Mama Bird makes seven trips to find a meal for each of her seven little ones; with each trip, she grows slightly more exhausted and the remaining unfed birdies grow slightly more ornery, until there is just one baby bird left to feed. Inevitably, as soon as all seven chicks are fed and asleep, they wake up hungry, at which time Mama Bird sensibly calls on Daddy to take his turn. The playful use of variety enlivens the reiterations of Mama’s food journeys (Mama brings bread crust from the playground, a peapod from the garden, and a minnow from the lake, among other things), so the verses avoid staid repetition; this same variety also yields an extensive range of language, so that on different excursions Mama Bird can be found zipping, flying, puffing, and limping. The juxtaposition of Mama Bird’s increasing exhaustion with the baby birds’ increasing impatience is spot-on hilarious, and readers-aloud will find plenty of occasion to ham up the contrast. Yelchin’s vibrant gouache paintings mirror much of the humor in the text; they evince a sharp-edged precision and a cartoonish flair that give the art graphic polish, with the compositions strongly structured by the scalloped background clouds and the foreground sweep of the nest-supporting tree limb. The wide-eyed, wide-mouthed baby birds are positively operatic in their expressive miens, and little listeners will love noting how the satiated chicks conk out in the nest almost as soon as they gulp down their food. This has abundant family and storytime appeal, and many a Mama Bird will relate to the feeling of starting all over again when sharing this story with their own nestlings. HM - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.