The art in Rilla Alexander’s 2022 picture book The New Rooster is a visual joy. The colors are bright and bold, and Alexander’s compositions seem to leap off the page. I enjoy looking at this book.
The premise of the story is good: a rooster who moves to a new country wants to do a good job of waking people up…but no one in his new country understands his language, and they keep right on sleeping. Very kid appropriate.
He tries and tries, but eventually gives up. He makes a big breakfast to console himself, and the smell wakes everyone up when his cry could not. The other animals join in, and everyone becomes friends. Food resolves the situation and provides common ground where language could not.
As an idea, I like it. As a story…I hesitated at several points and doubt broke in. Even if they don’t understand what the rooster is screaming…don’t they hear him? I’ve had food from other countries that made the barriers between us worse, not better–smells that filled the house and started everyone complaining. And this one may be personal, but it appears at one point that the rooster is scrambling eggs, which seems a bit like cannibalism.
So I enjoyed this, but I didn’t fully buy it.
