Book Review
A short overview of this book
Chicken Clicking by Jeanne Willis is a children’s book that parents can use to teach kids about the dangers of using the internet to make new friends.
This is another book that can be helpful when talking to kids about staying safe online. Cybersafety is a lesson that kids need to be taught about from a younger age.
This book starts off by talking about all the fun things you can do online, like shopping and buying things for yourself and other people. It then goes into the other things that you can do online, like meeting people and making new friends. The chicken makes a new friend who looks really nice and then goes to meet them (without telling it’s parents). And of course, on arriving, the friend is a fox and not the person they expected to see!
This book is written and illustrated by two well-known authors and illustrators, which means that the story is fun to read and look at.
This book is more of a story than an educational book. So it talks about how the chicken took a photo of themselves and posted it online with their name, but it doesn’t acknowledge that this is risky and what they should have done instead. So be prepared to stop and talk as you read this book, and ask your child what would they do or what could the chicken have done instead. And keep on asking them ‘why’.
So there are many possible conversations to be had with this book. You could talk about how online shopping can be fun, but you still need to pay for it! Or you could chat about impulse buying or the fact that it might look lovely online, but in reality, it might look very differently.
You could talk about not posting photos of yourself online, and to not share your real name, where you live or where you go to school. Plus your family rules about going into chatrooms or having private conversations with people you don’t know.
You could talk about your family rules for making friends online ie is it allowed? And if it’s allowed, under what conditions? Plus you could also talk about the fact that we can pretend to be someone else online, and that it is impossible to know if someone is being honest or not. And that it is unsafe to meet up with an online friend in real life.
Ideal Age
Ideal for children aged 5 to 9 years.
Buy this book
✅ Buy a copy of Chicken Clicking by Jeanne Willis from Amazon.
Video Transcription
A transcription in case you are more of a reader than a listener
Hey there! I’m Cath Hak from Sex Ed Rescue, where I talk about all things related to sex education. Today, I want to share a book review with you before I return it to the library. It’s called Chicken Clicking by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross, who are both well-known authors.
I love it when well-known authors write children’s books because they have a special way of making them enjoyable for both kids and parents. Let’s face it, as parents, we want to enjoy the books we read to our kids, especially if we have to read them over and over again! This book came out around 2015, and it’s not always easy to find these types of books, especially in my local library in Perth, Australia.
Chicken Clicking tells the story of a little chicken who sneaks into the farmer’s house and starts shopping online. It’s a fun and rhyming story that flows nicely as you read it aloud. The chicken buys all sorts of things, and the farmer’s wife gets upset because she realizes something is not right with all the purchases. This happens every night, and the chicken even makes a friend online.
But here’s where the book takes a turn. When the chicken decides to meet the online friend without telling her parents, she finds out that the friend is actually a fox! This is a great opportunity to talk to kids about the good and bad sides of the internet. We can find amazing things online, but we also need to be careful because not everyone is who they say they are.
I love that this book sparks conversations with kids. For example, you can ask them about the chicken’s outfit and whether it’s normal for chickens to wear pants. It’s a way to get them thinking and talking about appropriate behavior and boundaries. I recently had a conversation with my own kids about taking pictures of their private parts. It’s important to remind them that certain things should remain private and not be shared online.
Kids can sometimes forget these important messages, so it’s our job as parents and educators to keep having these conversations. Their brains are constantly developing, and they need reminders and guidance. Nowadays, with online games and chat rooms, even younger children can connect with others, which makes these conversations even more crucial.
Well, it looks like my noisy kids have arrived, and I’m sure you can hear them in the background. So, I’ll wrap it up here. I hope this review was helpful and encourages you to have important conversations with your own kids about internet safety. Cheers!
