Chicken Dance
by Jacques Couvillon

Release Date: 4th Feb 2008
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978 0 7475 8930 3
RRP: £6.99

Don Schmidt isn’t who he thinks he is. But then who is he? His parents aren’t all they seem to be either. In fact, his entire life seems to be held perilously close to the edge and after his eleventh birthday, the ground starts to move beneath this odd family’s feet.

Don, or whatever you want to call him, wins the local Chicken-judging contest and suddenly becomes Horse Islands’ most desirable commodity – or rather his chicken eggs do. The trouble is, this sets in motion a series of events so bizarre that is difficult to keep up with where the plot is going – at times, it feels as though the characters are too... but this is all noise and ambience to create an atmosphere that pre-teens and adults alike will slowly be able to acclimatise to until suddenly everything that comes out of Don’s mouth starts to make a strange kind of sense – and that’s when you realise that this Couvillon is something special.

Couvillon manages to communicate on a wavelength that is neither overly challenging or intimidating for young readers (American readers in particular will find this easy going), and we find ourselves bouncing alongside Don on his hapless and apparently non-circumspect adventures. Everything appears relatively benign and so there we are trotting along nicely, laughing at this silly redheaded boy who talks to his chickens when suddenly – wham – there is a kidnapped twin brother, who may or may not be real, a dead sister who might be alive, private detectives, family secrets, marital affairs, more chickens and the biggest shock of all... which I’m hardly about to ruin here.

An emotional story about the lies we tell each other and to ourselves. This uncovers the rawest of human relationships, told in a child’s voice from a child’s perspective. Chicken Dance is an improbable favourite and a close call for our Book of the Month; it creeps up slowly behind you and you barely take any notice because it seems like nothing is really going on and nothing is going to happen either and then it takes your breath away.

For children who are struggling to come to terms with a multitude of issues facing them in this day in age – this will perhaps offer them a guide and show them that if their situation is no worse than Don Schmidt’s then they can come through the other side.

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