Shh! We Have a Plan

What’s it about?

The story.

Three people are in the woods with a plan: they are going to catch a beautiful bird. Shh. Carefully now. Ready... and the bird flies away. This happens again. And again. A small child who is also present doesn't have a plan, she says hello to the bird, and offers it bread, and the bird comes and sits on her hand. Chris Haughton uses minimalist repetition to build the comedy: each failed attempt is identically structured, the three planners increasingly frustrated, the child getting better results through pure kindness and no strategy at all. The message, coercion versus connection; the futility of elaborate plans when gentleness would do, is delivered with enough lightness that it works purely as comedy for young readers while resonating differently for adults. Haughton's backgrounds are rich dark forest illustrations that reward looking; the visual storytelling carries more than the very sparse text. A classroom read-aloud standard that benefits from being read to a group where children shout out what's about to happen. His most subversive book, and one of his most satisfying.