A Crow of his Own tells a story about Clyde being the new kid on the farm. He hears about the best rooster, Larry, and tries to be just like him, except he keeps failing, so he starts to act like himself. By finding out who he is and embracing his own character, Larry starts to make friends and had a much better time on the farm. This book could be really beneficial to middle schoolers, even though it is a children's book because it shares a theme of embracing who you are. Middle schoolers are changing every day, so I think this book would comfort them in standing out against the crowd. This could also specifically benefit ELLs and students of color because of bias already within schools. ( )

Clyde is the new rooster at Sunrise farm. His predecessor, Larry, the prize winning rooster, has moved onto bigger and better things, leaving some big cockadoodledo’s to fill. Initially the barnyard animals are not impressed by this scrawny newcomer. Except Roberta, a motherly goose, who tries to take Clyde under her wing. As Clyde tries to live up the Larry’s reputation, he fails miserably. But when Roberta convinces Clyde to forget about Larry and do his own this thing, he finally finds his own unique and magnificent crow. Lambert’s creative word play, using words like “stammered” and “mused” in place of “said” or “asked” raises this story to a new level. Costello’s colorful illustrations, done in watercolor, are the perfect compliment to Lambert’s text and fill out the story. The creative use of speech bubbles give voices to the barnyard animals and add humor to the story. A refreshing and funny reminder to be yourself.

Fantastic addition to any storytime, recommended for pre-K to 3rd grade. ( )

New rooster Clyde finds it hard going to follow his predecessor, the legendary Larry, but eventually finds his own voice. A good message amusingly conveyed. ( )

(ARC was provided to read and review.)

Sunrise Farm needs a new rooster for the daily wake-up call, as their old one, larger-than-life Larry, has moved on to bigger things. Larry made quite a spectacular show of his early morning duty and is now a star, traveling the country and visiting talk shows.
The farmers Jay and Kevin have bought a new cockerel, Clyde. Sadly, he fails to impress from the start, as he's small in size and rather shy. The farm animals are very disappointed and wish Larry was back. Just Roberta the goose is friendly and helpful.
Clyde decides, his best option is to copy Larry, but that doesn't work out particularly well, as he studies all night how to crow like Larry and in the morning he is so tired, he oversleeps.
The animals are upset and angry. Who has ever heard of a rooster sleeping in?
But Clyde is not prepared to give up that easily and tries his best to be exactly like Larry. It never works, things keep going wrong all the time and eventually he's close to giving up, but kind Roberta has a good advice. He should simply crow his own crow. Will it work? Will the other animals accept him, if he's just himself?

A Crow of His Own is a very funny and warm hearted story of being yourself, as we are all special, just the way we are and that it's important, to find your own voice.
I read the book with my preschoolers and they rooted for the cute rooster right from the word go. You can't help, but feel for Clyde.

The farm animals talk to each other in comic style speech bubbles and the younger children found the smaller print in the bubbles a bit more challenging to read, as are some of the words in the book, as very few young readers will know expressions like: distress, crescendo, choreographing, But the author has made quite an effort to find a wide variety of verbs, instead of the normally constant "said" and "asked" and it works rather well. Also the vivid illustrations are completely splendid, with lots of small details (like little mice to look out for, etc.), and they created with my group a lot of fun and kept them engaged with the story throughout. ( )