View source for Mr Chicken Goes To Paris by Leigh Hobbs

{{infobox2
|title=Mr Chicken Goes To Paris
|author=Leigh Hobbs
|reviewer=Keith Dudhnath
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=A wild and crazy ride with a giant plucked chicken visiting Paris. Utterly barking, and utterly hilarious. Recommended.
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1408805244
|pages=32
|publisher=Bloomsbury
|date=September 2010
|aznuk=1408805243
|aznus=1408805243
|cover=1408805243
|website=http://www.leighhobbs.com.au/
}}

Mr Chicken wants to see France, so he reads his guidebooks, learns his French phrases and arranges for his penpal Yvette to meet him at the airport. Ooh la la!

I loved ''Mr Chicken Goes To Paris''. It's barking mad! What's not to love about a giant grizzling plucked chicken, marauding around the sights of the City of Love? It's just utterly hilarious to see Mr Chicken going to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa (and buy a souvenir tea towel) whilst all the other tourists stare agog. If you like your books surreal and silly, you'll be giggling throughout, especially as the text plays it so straight. Said text is crisp and direct, moving the story along at a fair ol' lick.

This isn't the first time I've come across Mr Chicken. His inception was in {{amazonurl|isbn=1408805227|title=Hooray For Horrible Harriet}}. As much as I enjoy ''Mr Chicken Goes To Paris'', I really didn't like ''Hooray For Horrible Harriet'': it had similar levels of silliness and craziness, but lacked a well-founded story. It felt like a sub-Beano insubstantial comic. No such problems here - ''Mr Chicken'' has a beginning, middle and end, and you really care about the characters. The gap between meh and guffaw is surprisingly small.

Leigh Hobbs' illustrations have a scratchy pen and ink style, which really suits the craziness of the story. If you don't laugh your head off at Monsieur Poulet's expression as he's getting his portrait painted, there's something wrong with you! Each page is full of plenty of action and excitement - admittedly, mostly just people staring at Mr Chicken round Paris, but the joke never wears thin.

I could read ''Mr Chicken'' time and again, but ''Horrible Harriet'' really doesn't do it for me. Still, I suppose that's why Bookbag is here: to help you make the right book choices. This is one you'll love. It's silly enough to hook the youngest readers, but the humour keeps giving for those drifting towards learning to read for themselves. Parents will chuckle along too. Recommended.

My thanks to the publishers for sending it to Bookbag.

For more action-packed silliness, check out [[Unfortunately by Alan Durant and Simon Rickerty]] and [[Dear Miss by Amy Husband]]. If France is your thing, you'll enjoy [[Moi and Marie Antoinette by Lynn Cullen and Amy Young]] and [[Miss Louise Goes to Paris by Carolyn Hink and Emma Calder]]. You might also like [[My Mummy does weird things / Maman fait des choses bizarres by Amelie Julien and Gustyawan]].

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