This wonderful story by writer Daniel Pinkwater, as told to host Scott Simon, is about “Yetta the Chicken” – who escapes as she is being taken to the slaughterhouse and goes to live with wild parrots in Brooklyn. Click on the above link to listen.

Beautiful Yetta
By Daniel Pinkwater
Hardcover, 32 pages
Feiwel & Friends
List price: $16.99

From NPR’s Write-Up about Beautiful Yetta:
Daniel Pinkwater's new children's book, Beautiful Yetta, isn't your average bedtime story. The story may seem traditional — a chicken escapes from the butcher's shop and finds a new home among parrots in Brooklyn — but the characters in the book don't just speak one language to each other. There's English, there's Spanish, and there's Yiddish, translated phonetically for those who can't read the Hebrew characters — all fleshing out an uplifting tale of acceptance in the urban jungle.

Author Daniel Pinkwater says this multilingual approach was inspired by his childhood: "Growing up there was Yiddish in the background in my family, as in many families. In our case, the parents didn't really want us to understand it, because they used it as code, it was a secret language."

Pinkwater wanted to give young children a taste of translation, and it perfectly accompanies the story's themes of diversity and multiculturalism. "It's an experience of translation and comparative orthography, mixed in with a story that turns out to be heartwarming and nice."

To give NPR listeners a chance to hear the book in all its multilingual glory, Weekend Edition hosts Scott Simon and Liane Hansen invited producer Sarah Beyer Kelley and Pinkwater himself to read the book aloud. The story truly comes to life in this vivid retelling.

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Beautiful Yetta is a moving antidote to the cruel Kaporos “chicken swinging” ritual. Please join our RALLY in Brooklyn on Sunday, September 12, sponsored by the Alliance To End Chickens as Kaporos. For information about our Rally and campaign, please visit www.EndChickensAsKaporos.com. And while you’re there, please sign our Petition to Replace Chickens With Money in Kaporos Rituals. And please – urge your friends and family to sign on with you. Thank you for sticking up for beautiful chickens everywhere.