Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Read online

  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

  New York London Toronto Sydney

  by Bill Martin Jr

  and

  John Archambault

  illustrated by

  Lois Ehlert

  A Bit of History

  ore than twenty-five years ago, Bill Martin Jr and I were at a hotel in San Francisco, conducting a workshop for teachers on the power of poetry and predictable text for early readers. A man introduced himself, explaining that he hadn't learned to read until the fifth grade, when his class came up with a lively cheer that began with “Chigga Chigga whole potata, half past alligata, bim bam bulligata.” By connecting the rhythm and sounds with the letters he saw written on the chalkboard, he finally began to read.

  I couldn't get that story and that cheer out of my head, and as I said the cheer over and over to my six-month-old son, it evolved—in that wonderful way that things often do when you repeat them a lot to your baby—into “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.”

  Around that time, Bill and I got the idea to write an alphabet book together, and “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”—plus the palm tree outside my California windows—became the center of the piece. Bill and I ping-ponged back and forth over the phone, reciting and rewriting the book literally dozens of times. “John, what happens after the letters climb up the tree?” Bill asked one day. Another day he called and said, “John, I've got one. How about black-eyed P?” That led to my favorite: “loose-tooth T!” The traffic jams I'd see of parents picking up their children when school let out each day inspired the second half of the book. Naturally, the lowercase letters became the children and the capital letters the “mamas and papas and uncles and aunts.” Bill and I had a blast working together. I used to laugh and say, “Can you believe two grown men would play with the alphabet for weeks . . . and actually have fun doing it?!”

  I am blessed to have had Bill Martin Jr as a mentor and a friend, and I am honored to have worked with him for over a decade—a joyous collaboration that produced more than a dozen books. I will never forget his marvelous ear for language and his face-lit grin when he would turn to me and say, “John, that's it! That's a book!”

  —John Archambault

  hen I first read the Chicka text, I thought: I can do a butterfly, a squirrel, a fish, or a cat, but letters climbing up a coconut tree? I can't do that! I read the words over again. I thought it sounded like the letters of the alphabet were having a party in that coconut tree. I began cutting out the letters from colored paper with my scissors, and then I made a polka-dot border for a stage. Soon Chicka and I were dancing together, words and pictures moving in a festive rhythm that still gets me tapping my toes, even after all these years!

  —Lois Ehlert

  A told B,

  and B told C,

  “I’ll meet you at the top

  of the coconut tree.”

  “Whee!” said D

  to E F G.

  “I’ll beat you to the top

  of the coconut tree.”

  Chicka Chicka boom boom!

  Will there be enough room?

  Here comes H

  up the coconut tree,

  and I and J

  and tag-along K,

  all on their way

  up the coconut tree.

  Chicka chicka boom boom!

  Will there be enough room?

  Look who’s coming!

  L M N O P!

  And Q R S!

  And T U V !

  Still more— W!

  And X Y Z!

  The whole alphabet

  up the—Oh, no!

  Chicka chicka...

  BOOM! BOOM!

  Skit skat skoodle doot.

  Flip flop flee.

  Everybody running to the coconut tree.

  Mamas and papas

  and uncles and aunts

  hug their little dears,

  then dust their pants.

  “Help us up,”

  cried A B C.

  Next from the pileup

  skinned-knee D

  and stubbed-toe E

  and patched-up F.

  Then comes G

  all out of breath.

  H is tangled up with I.

  J and K are about to cry.

  L is knotted like a tie.

  M is looped.

  N is stooped.

  O is twisted alley-oop.

  Skit skat skoodle doot.

  Flip flop flee.

  Look who’s coming!

  It’s black-eyed P,

  Q R S,

  and loose-tooth T.

  Then U V W

  wiggle-jiggle free.

  Last to come

  X Y Z.

  And the sun goes down

  on the coconut tree...

  But—

  chicka chicka boom boom!

  Look, there’s a full moon.

  A is out of bed,

  and this is what he said:

  “Dare double dare,

  you can’t catch me.

  I’ll beat you to the top

  of the coconut tree.”

  Chicka chicka

  BOOM! BOOM!

 

 

  Bill Martin Jr, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

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