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Reviewed by: Emily McFarlane, Elementary School Librarian Title: One Chicken Nugget
Author/Illustrator: Tadgh Bentley
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Year: 2023 Good for Grades: 1-4 Genre/Type of Book: Humor, Math, Picture Book
Content Warnings, or things that other School Librarians should be aware of: None!
Recommended for a school library: Yes Reason(s) for choosing the book: Colleague recommendation
If you were tasked by the publisher with writing a short quote for the back cover of this book, what would it be:
When double or nothing causes a LOT of trouble!
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Review:
Frank the Monster LOVES chicken nuggets! Specifically, he loves the nuggets made at Celeste's food truck. The problem? Celeste DOESN'T love him. He's not a great customer, and constantly eats up all of her stock! When he clears her out yet again, she comes up with a mathematical solution to her monstrous problem: a competition where each day, the contestants will have to eat double the number of chicken nuggets as the day before. If they can do it each day for 30 days, they'll win free chicken nuggets for life! Can Celeste outsmart her monstrous customer or will Frank be dining on delicious free nuggets forever?
This book is adorable and hilarious! It's also a great review for the concept of doubling or two times equations. The numbers grow out of control very quickly, which leads to some scandalized looks as we get into the hundreds of millions of chicken nuggets. Frank and Celeste are adorable characters, and no one is really the "villain" of the story. As it continues, the nugget amounts get more and more outrageous until Frank finally succumbs to his hubris on day 30 after over 500 million chicken nuggets. The last pages are a delight to read and continue to make students smile. This retelling of the Indian folktale of Sissa is one that will continue to delight librarians and readers, and features a fun author's note wherein Bentley reveals how many chicken nuggets could fit in an Olympic sized swimming pool. This book has a very simple color palette of yellow/orange/pink and purple/blue, which remains consistent throughout the book. It looks lovely and helps to tie the entire story together, and also causes the chalkboard with the daily nugget totals to stand out very sharply. There are a couple of especially dynamic pages that are very fun to highlight during a read aloud.
This book would be great for a math unit on doubling or multiplication, and even an SEL unit on manners, friendship, or compromise. (How could Celeste and Frank solve this problem in another way? etc.) It is a very fun and engaging read aloud for 3rd grade, who generally understand the math concepts. The cover features a stand off between Celeste and Frank, who is holding up the titular chicken nugget with a huge smile on his face. The title is very eye catching and the cover is cute, which may easily catch readers' attention.
Number of party hats:
Find resources about One Chicken Nugget on Teachingbooks.net
For more information about this book, see the Publishers Website