My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me
Did you know Maya Angelou wrote a book for children called My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me ? It’s about an eight-year-old girl called Thandi -- which means "hope" in her language -- who lives in an Ndebele village in South Africa with her family and a very special chicken who she tells her secrets to. It’s one of my 19-month-old granddaughter Kelsey’s favorite books, and because she also has such a special relationship with chickens, we often have to skip straight to the parts where Thandi is holding the big, pretty chicken in her arms. Kelsey has been living in a village of sorts too for the past year. Her parents have been working from home since last March because of the pandemic, and working from home has meant spending big chunks of time at both sets of grandparents’ houses, so Kelsey can be cared for while her parents work. This Covid Bubble Village has kept her so sheltered from the outside world for such a long time, that she knows