SpringChicken ISSUU

Spring Chicken · pb · 260x215mm · Spine 3mm · Bleed 5mm · CMYK

O’BRIEN

is a chicken with a dream.

She wants to fly for longer than any chicken ever has before.

SPRING CHICKEN

Amelia Egghart

There’s a problem though – chickens have very small wings. Luckily, Amelia’s best friend (and genius inventor) Ferguson is here to help.

All she needs to do is follow the plan ...

Paul Nugent

obrien.ie CHILDREN’S FICTION

For Bernie and Buster

First published 2025 by The O’Brien Press Ltd, 12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, D06 HD27, Ireland Tel: +353 1 4923333; Fax: +353 1 4922777 E-mail: books@obrien.ie Website: obrien.ie The O’Brien Press is a member of Publishing Ireland.

Copyright for text & illustration © Paul Nugent The moral rights of the author & illustrator have been asserted.

Copyright for layout, editing and design © The O’Brien Press Layout and design by Chris Rychter www.chrisrychter.com ISBN: 978-1-78849-479-3 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including for text and data mining, training artificial intelligence systems, photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

87654321 29 28 27 26 25 Printed and bound in Poland by Bia³ostockie Zak³ady Graficzne SA The O’Brien Press received financial assistance from the Arts Council to publish this title Published in

This is Amelia Egghart

Hi, I’ m Amelia!

and she is a chicken with a dream.

4

My dream is to fly for longer than any chicken ever has before.

But chickens really aren’t very good at flying.

Probably because our wings are so small ...

The longest a chicken has ever flown is 13 seconds.

Amelia will need some help to beat that.

5

Every day since she was a chick, Amelia has been practising,

preparing

and training

for the day when she will finally ... FLY!

With her every step of the way is her best friend and genius inventor, Ferguson. He has made a plan that is sure to help Amelia fly.

Ferguson goes over the plan one more time before take-off.

‘Remember, don’t fly too close to the sun or the glue on the wings might melt,’ says Ferguson.

But Amelia is too excited to listen.

8

3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Let’ s fly!

9

Well, that didn’t work.

But Amelia isn’t going to give up.

10

We need a new plan.

We need to think bigger! Perhaps if we could get up higher ...

Yes! Ferguson, you’ re amazing.

Ferguson goes over the plan one more time before take-off. ‘Remember, we’re going to be up very, very high,’ he says.

But Amelia is too nervous to listen.

12

3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Let’ s fly!

Amelia freezes.

I don’ t think I like this plan! Let’ s go back down and think of something else.

She has never been up this high before.

It’s a bit scary.

I’ m not chickening out though!

13

That plan didn’t work, but Amelia won’t give up.

14