The Trouble With Chickens

Doreen Cronin is an American children’s author. Born in 1966 in Queens, New York, Cronin studied law at St. John’s University School of Law before beginning her career as a writer. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Cronin is best known for her best-selling picture book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type and its sequels Click, Clack, Boo: A Tricky Treat and Duck for President. Cronin’s books have been finalists for prizes such as the Odyssey Award, the Cybils Award for Early Chapter Books, and the Amelia Bloomer List. Her first picture book, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, won the Caldecott Medal, and its follow-up book, Duck for President, won the Indies Choice Book Award. Cronin has expanded on her picture book success in her “Ready to Read” series, a beginner reader series that features familiar characters like Duck and Farmer Brown. Her latest picture book, Mama in the Moon, is about a baby sloth and its mother. Cronin is also the author of numerous chapter books for children, including the “Diary” series, which features tiny critters explaining the world from their perspectives in Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider, and Diary of a Fly.

Like much of Cronin’s other work, The Trouble With Chickens: A J.J. Tully Mystery also features animal characters who go on an exciting misadventure. This work was a finalist for the Cybils Award for Early Chapter Books. Its tone, short chapters, and illustrations make the work accessible for young readers who are new to chapter books.

J.J.’s pursuit of clues as a dog detective in The Trouble With Chickens is similar to the Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey, which follows the adventures of Dog Man, a superhero with the head of a dog and the body of a police officer who stops crimes. This series includes Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas, Dog Man: Grime and Punishment, and Dog Man: Mothering Heights. Other novels in this category include The InvestiGators series, which follows a spy alligator duo, and Real Pigeons Fight Crime, which focuses on crime-fighting pigeons.

Cronin follows The Trouble With Chickens with its sequel, The Legend of Diamond Lil: A J.J. Tully Mystery. This series is similar to Cronin’s The Chicken Squad book series, which features the same mischievous chicks Dirt, Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie in The Trouble With Chickens. The Chicken Squad series is now an animated show on Disney Junior and has won critical acclaim for its humor and wit, with Publishers Weekly calling it “fast-paced and funny” and the School Library Journal remarking that it is “lip-bitingly funny” (“The Complete Chicken Squad Misadventures (Boxed Set).” Simon & Schuster, 2024).