Ed Young,
Hook
Roaring Brook Press, 2009.

Ages 4-7

Hook begins with a shirtless and head-banded Native American boy finding a large abandoned egg which he presents to a chicken to nurture. When the huge egg breaks open, the caring hen and her brood regard the “strange chick” dubiously. The eaglet is named for his weird hook nose. Over the course of lusciously illustrated pages, the hen realizes he’s “not meant for earth” and when he’s grown enough encourages him to fly. But Hook falls, and he falls again when the boy launches him from a pueblo rooftop. At last the boy takes him to the “great canyon” and tosses him to the wind. Ed Young takes four pages to illustrate his story’s denouement. “Hook plunges. He spreads his wings, catching a gust of air. And rises to where he belongs. For he wasn’t meant for earth.”

Winner of Caldecott and Hans Christian Anderson awards and illustrator of over 80 books (many of which he wrote or re-told as well), Young uses words to fill in where illustrations can’t tell the story, but his pictures largely carry the plot. Sketched in pastels on sandstone-colored paper, the pale blues of the chicks and the sky contrast superbly with Hook’s dark feathers, the boy’s dark hair, and the hen’s red comb.

A sort of re-telling of the Ugly Duckling story, Hook relates how experiences of abandonment, weirdness and failure can lead, with sufficient effort and support, to eventual success. The endearing chicks puzzling over the strange egg, the disconcerted Hook flapping helplessly to the ground, the lithe boy carrying the bird up a ladder will captivate and hearten small children.
Young brings a special spirit to his art, and Hook provides both child and adult with the sort of joint attentional experience from which empathy grows. Some questions may arise in the environmentally precocious about the safety of a hen and chicks with a hungry eaglet about, but in general adults will appreciate Young’s deft artistic gestures, and children will turn the pages of his story gratefully, again and again.

Charlotte Richardson
December 2009