A chick hatches out of its egg, but who does it belong to? No one seems to know--not Goose ("Honk!"), not Duck ("Quack!"), not Hen ("Cluck!"), not Bird ("Chirp!"). Not even Little Chick ("croo? croo?"). But Little Chick's parents know, and--as sharp observers will delight in noting--they've been swimming nearby all along.
Whose Chick Are You? is endearing in its simplicity both in words and art. The story is told with one large and bold-font sentence per page, making it easier for your child to follow along while you read. It also makes a great practice book when your child is starting to sound out words and read on their own. Each animal finds the bird nest without the Swans in it and asks, “Whose egg is this?” Repetition of that line also makes it easy for your little one to join in and ‘read’ with you.
Readers can have fun naming the different animals on each page. There are swans, a frog, a rooster, hens, chicks, a duck, and more. The various animal noises encourage parents to get into the reading and present it with personality and fun, while children are likely to join in on the silly sound effects.
Nancy Tafuri began drawing at a very young age. She recalls that her mother "thought [she] would make a great interior decorator." But Tafuri had other ideas: "The more I thought about it the more I realized that I didn't want to fix up other people's houses. I had no idea that you could grow up to be a children's book illustrator."
Nancy's first big break as an illustrator for children's books came when she was given the opportunity to work on George Shannon's The Piney Woods Peddler in 1980. She modeled her illustrations on her husband and the old Pennsylvania gristmill they were living in at the time, and the book was published in 1981. The Piney Woods Peddler proceeded to win a Children's Choice citation from the International Reading Association and Tafuri's output has been prolific ever since.
Nancy says that when she was little she loved animals and wanted to draw them. As an illustrator, she always works very hard on "getting all the facts correct in my illustrations. Each animal or rock formation has to be correct. Even though my books aren't nonfiction, the feeling of accuracy has to be there."
Nancy has received several citations and awards for her work, including the Caldecott Honor Award for Have You Seen My Duckling? She lives in the country with her husband and daughter.