A girl who wants tickets to an amusement park for her birthday gets a chicken from her Abuela Lola instead. A chicken that isn’t interested in eating and doesn’t have time to lay eggs. It does, however, have a list. At the top of the list: 100 steel girders. At the bottom: a partridge in a pear tree. In between is everything from a winch, cement, a horse, and firewood to a bird, a cat (to catch the bird), a dog (to catch the cat) and pom-poms. The chicken also has a plan. It involves complicated construction, which the chicken oversees as it puts the various animals to work. When the chicken arranges for Abuela Lola to visit, it puts her to work too. “I got a chicken for my birthday,” says the young narrator with each turn of the page before describing the latest developments in a spare, droll accounting paired with colorful India ink illustrations. The end result? A fully functioning amusement park. (Ages 4–8)

All the birthday girl wants from her Abuela is a ticket to the amusement park. Instead, she gets a chicken. But this chicken is no ordinary chicken; it has plans! With a lot of hard work, and help from other animals, this chicken may just end up granting the girl the best birthday gift ever.