Little Naomi, Little Chick

In a story first published in Israel, Golan and Karas follow a human preschooler and a tiny yellow chick through their days. Golan relates Naomi’s experiences through loosely rhymed text with a somewhat haphazard structure; on opposing pages, Little Chick’s day unfolds visually though full-bleed crayon and pencil illustrations whose delicacy is suggestive of Erin Stead’s picture books. Naomi awakens and has an eventful day at preschool (“Naomi plays with blocks/ and builds a tower,/ feeds the dolls/ and picks some flowers”) before spending the afternoon with her mother and settling down to bed. Little Chick, meanwhile, has fun playing with barnyard friends, making a mess of hanging laundry, and preparing to sleep. Spot illustrations of Naomi appear underneath the text passages; in a neat visual analogue, Naomi wears a pair of ladybug antennae with her polka-dot dress, while Little Chick has two feathers bobbing from its head. Readers may be surprised that the two stories never intersect in any meaningful way, and the recurring refrain, “But not Little Chick,” is somewhat odd given how parallel, if species-specific, Naomi and Little Chick’s days actually are. Ages 3–6. (Sept.)