FARM CRIMES!

This graphic novel is precisely as obtuse as it should be.

The most famous—and possibly the dumbest—chicken joke of all time is, “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.” It follows a classic formula. It treats something ridiculously obvious as a huge surprise. This chicken story adopts the same structure. A hen lays an egg and can’t figure out why it’s suddenly vanished, even though one of the clues is a broken eggshell. She even brings in “the world’s #1 goat detective,” Billiam Van Hoof, who takes a plane to reach the other end of the farm. Some readers will lose patience once they realize the egg has simply hatched. Others will want to see how Dumais maintains the suspense. Arguably, she doesn’t. She just keeps adding more clues (a feather, teeny little footprints) until the pages run out. But the details along the way are hilariously confused: a signpost pointing to “unknown,” a map that’s accidentally drawn upside down. And the childlike illustrations are, for the most part, sweetly minimalist. One sequence consists of nothing but eyes glancing suspiciously at each other. But because every character is an extremely anthropomorphized animal, readers are treated to absurd touches like a cow wearing a black-and-white spotted dress. And many readers will enjoy feeling ahead of the game.

A shaggy dog story with chickens. What’s not to like?