Chicka Chicka Boom Boom


Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is a bestselling American children's book written by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert, and published by Simon & Schuster in 1989. The book features anthropomorphized letters. The book charted on The New York Times Best Seller list for children's books in 2000.

Summary

The lowercase letters climb a coconut tree in alphabetical order, until their weight causes the tree to bend so much, causing them to all fall out of the tree. Capital letters come to help them. Again alphabetically, it describes each letter's injury.
At night, letter A comes back and climbs up the coconut tree, daring the other letters to catch him.
An audio book version is also available, narrated by Ray Charles.
A CD-ROM version was released in 1995 by Davidson and Simon & Schuster Interactive.
It inspired a 2004 sequel, Chicka, Chicka, 1, 2, 3. A board book for toddlers, entitled Chicka, Chicka ABC was published in 1990, containing the first half of the full story, which ends up with all 26 letters falling out of the tree.
Weston Woods made an animated musical short film adaptation of the original book, with music composed and performed by Crystal Taliefero.

Album

In 1992, along with musician David Plummer, Archambault released an album composed of several songs based on the storybook, entitled Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Other Coconutty Songs. The album was named a 1992 "Notable Children’s Recording" by the American Library Association and in 1993, won a Parents' Choice Award.

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