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A very special baby chicken was born to Emma Hen and Harvey Rooster. When the chick was hatched, he was already wearing a deerstalker hat and carrying a magnifying glass. His parents knew that their chick was going to be special, so they named him Sherlock. He went on to become a talented junior detective and solve four mysteries around the farmyard. These adventures were chronicled and illustrated by his own John Watson, Robert Quackenbush, a talented artist, illustrator, and writer.
Quackenbush’s Henry the Duck series is hilarious (see my review). The Sherlock Chick four-book series is written even more simply and is perfect for a child just learning to read. Somehow, Quackenbush combines very simple language and few words to put together stories that every child will enjoy reading and giggle at and stories that parents will enjoy reading aloud. The illustrations are simple, colorful, and whimsical, a perfect accompaniment to the stories. Most first readers do not come close to having this interesting of a story. Finally, a wonderful outcome of sampling these books, besides learning to read, would be for a child to someday move on to enjoy the real Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.