When Mary McBlicken the prairie chicken hears a rumblin' and a grumblin', she sets off to warn her friends in this prairie-style twist on Chicken Little. Mary McBlicken is sure a stampede's a comin'! She hurries to the ranch, gathering up her friends—a prairie dog, a jack rabbit, and a meadowlark—along the way. Before the fine feathered and furry folks get to their destination, they encounter a coyote who says he knows a shortcut. Should they trust him? Will they find Cowboy Stan and Red Dog Dan in time? And where is that rumbling coming from anyway? Jackie Mims Hopkins brings readers a hilarious, prairie-style rendition of a well-loved tale. Henry Cole's energetic illustrations perfectly complement the hilarity and will have readers laughing out loud.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" Chicken Little and his feathered friends got all aflutter when something fell on his head and he assumed it must be the sky falling to bits. Eventually Chicken Little learns there is nothing to be afraid of, and perhaps it's better not to panic before you find out the whole story.

For ten months of the year, the prairie-chicken’s drab colors allow it to disappear into the landscape. However, in April and May this grouse is one of the most outrageously flamboyant birds in North America. Competing with each other for the attention of females, males gather before dawn in an explosion of sights and sounds—“booming from the mists of nowhere,” as Aldo Leopold wrote decades ago. There’s nothing else like it, and it is perilously close to being lost. In this book, ecologist Greg Hoch shows that we can ensure that this iconic bird flourishes once again. Skillfully interweaving lyrical accounts from early settlers, hunters, and pioneer naturalists with recent scientific research on the grouse and its favored grasslands, Hoch reveals that the prairie-chicken played a key role in the American settlement of the Midwest. Many hungry pioneers regularly shot and ate the bird, as well as trapping hundreds of thousands, shipping them eastward by the trainload for coastal suppers. As a result of both hunting and habitat loss, the bird’s numbers plummeted to extinction across 90 percent of its original habitat. Iowa, whose tallgrass prairies formed the very center of the greater prairie-chicken’s range, no longer supports a native population of the bird most symbolic of prairie habitat. The steep decline in the prairie-chicken population is one of the great tragedies of twentieth-century wildlife management and agricultural practices. However, Hoch gives us reason for optimism. These birds can thrive in agriculturally productive grasslands. Careful grazing, reduced use of pesticides, well-placed wildlife corridors, planned burning, higher plant, animal, and insect diversity: these are the keys. If enough blocks of healthy grasslands are scattered over the midwestern landscape, there will be prairie-chickens—and many of their fellow creatures of the tall grasses. Farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and citizens can reverse the decline of grassland birds and insure that future generations will hear the booming of the prairie-chicken.

The hilarious story of an unlikely group of Indigenous dancers who find themselves thrown together on a performance tour of Europe The Tour is all prepared. The Prairie Chicken dance troupe is all set for a fifteen-day trek through Europe, performing at festivals and cultural events. But then the performers all come down with the flu. And John Greyeyes, a retired cowboy who hasn't danced in fifteen years, finds himself abruptly thrust into the position of leading a hastily-assembled group of replacement dancers. A group of expert dancers they are not. There's a middle-aged woman with advanced arthritis, her nineteen-year-old niece who is far more interested in flirtations than pow-wow, and an enigmatic man from the U.S. -- all being chased by Nadine, the organizer of the original tour who is determined to be a part of the action, and the handsome man she picked up in a gas-station bathroom. They're all looking to John, who has never left the continent, to guide them through a world that he knows nothing about. As the gang makes its way from one stop to another, absolutely nothing goes as planned and the tour becomes a string of madcap adventures. The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour is loosely based -- like, hospital-gown loose -- on the true story of a group of Indigenous dancers who left Saskatchewan and toured through Europe in the 1970s. Dawn Dumont brings her signature razor-sharp wit and impeccable comedic timing to this hilarious, warm, and wildly entertaining novel.

In this retelling of the classic tale, Mary McBlicken, a small prairie chicken, and her animal friends are on their way to tell Cowboy Stan and Red Dog Dan that a stampede is coming when they meet a hungry coyote.

When an acorn falls on her head, the chicken, Henny Penny, is convinced the sky is falling.

In this retelling of the classic tale, Mary McBlicken, a small prairie chicken, and her animal friends are on their way to tell Cowboy Stan and Red Dog Dan that a stampede is coming when they meet a hungry coyote.