Bad Boys Get Henpecked!
Kindergarten-Grade 2—Willy and Wally Wolf, hungry for a finger-lickin' chicken dinner, disguise themselves as chickens and pose as domestic workers for hire. Dubbing themselves the "Handy-Dandy Lupino Brothers," they hatch a plan to clean out the coop. Mother hen is delighted by the brothers' offer, but admonishes that she can "pay mere chicken feed." They reply in delight, "We work for cheep." In an instant, Willy and Wally are laden with aprons, cleaning equipment, and supplies and handed a lengthy to-do list. They sweep, mop, scrub, vacuum, dust, polish, wash, hang, iron, and take out garbage. All that when they aren't watching dozens of chicks. Exhausted, they quickly fall into a deep slumber, and the chicks run wild, at least until their mother returns. Willy and Wally hightail it out of there, having lost their taste for chicken. With its fast-paced language and witty narrative paired with lively alliteration and puns, the Bad Boys' latest tale will entertain and capture youngsters' imaginations. Cole deftly expresses humor and the power of understatement in his pencil and watercolor illustrations. Expressive facial expressions and body language tell all.—Marian Creamer, Children's Literature Alive, Portland, ORCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.