Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco

This is the story of three children who want to buy an Easter bonnet for their poor nanny to show how much they love her. The children get the idea to ask the hat shopkeeper if they can do extra work around the store to earn the money to pay for the hat. Due to a misunderstanding, the children end up getting blamed by the shopkeeper for egging his store. To make it up to him, the children decorate eggs with wax and dye and give them to the shopkeeper as a peace offering. The children end up making enough money to buy the hat by selling their decorated eggs at the hat store.
This was a touching book, the emotion expressed by the characters (especially the nanny) is very intense yet also deep and believable. Knowing that this is a true story makes it more interesting as well. The book has good messages for young readers, like the importance of showing kindness to strangers. The shopkeeper is a Russian holocaust survivor who is still persecuted by many people in the neighborhood even though the war is over. By showing him kindness the children were able to break through his steely exterior and were treated very kindly by him in return.