This is a modern fantasy picture book about a baby owl who is reading a book. A chick comes along and asks if he can sit on his lap while the owl reads. Pretty soon more and more chicks come along until the owl is being squashed and can no longer read. The owls dad and the chicks mom come to help the situation. Eventually owl agrees to read to them if the chicks don's squash him. The chicks sit on owl's dad and chick's mom while baby owl reads them a story. ( )

Too many chicks pile onto Baby Owl's lap ... he can't read!! ( )

One afternoon, Baby Owl sits down with the intention of reading a story to his stuffed toy, Owly. When Tiny Chick approaches and asks to listen to his story, Baby Owl is more than happy to include him; however, the storytime quickly gets derailed when all of Tiny Chick’s siblings, cousins, and friends attempt to climb on Baby Owl’s lap to listen to his story. Baby Owl is unable to read the picture book as he is being crushed, and has to ask his dad and Tiny Chick’s mom for help. Allen uses capitalization and punctuation well to convey Baby Owl’s frustration with being unable to read the story. This frustrations culminates in his exclamation of “I am NOT reading!” which is stylistically set apart from the rest of the text using capitalization and boldface. The text, coupled with the range of expression on both Baby Owl’s and the chick’s faces in Allen’s soft, colorful illustrations, will enhance the humor and enjoyment of the text for both adult and child. The simplicity of the story makes it a good choice for very young readers, but I’m Not Reading can be entertaining for all readers. ( )