THE HAPPY HOCKY FAMILY MOVES TO THE COUNTRY!

The Hockys get a taste (and a smell) of rural living in this belated sequel to Smith’s deliciously post-modern primer, The Happy Hocky Family (1993). “In the city you use an alarm clock to wake up. In the country you don’t need one. COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO goes the neighbor’s rooster at 5:30 in the morning.” Seen as minimal, but artfully colored figures floating on fields of brown speckled paper, the Hockys experience a range of delights, from a leaky roof to nearby livestock in shifting winds. Meanwhile they struggle (without success) to make the bird feeder squirrel-proof, to dispose of autumn leaves that can be neither burned nor deposited in the town dump, and to keep the “wild bunny” out of the garden. In time the Hockys once again demonstrate their resilience, and readers will hardly need Smith’s assurance that they’re “going to be OKAY in the country!” The language moves a little past the prequel’s “Dick and Jane” primer level, but the twists are still sudden, sardonic, and as diverting to children as they are to grown-ups. (Picture book. 6-8)