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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
It's extremely hard to describe this book and not use the word charming, because it really, really is. On the surface it seems like a simple story of a girl who finds her late great-uncle's chickens and learns how to take care of them, which sounds like a pretty staid and maybe even boring story. This is NOT a boring story. There is no swashbuckling or natural disasters in terms of action (but there is chicken theft! And magical chickens with odd little abilities!), but there is a subtle story that builds and grows on the reader, with threads of a young girl missing her recently deceased grandmother, a family adjusting to dad's unemployment and a move from a large city to a small rural town, a girl's learning self-sufficiency and problem-solving, racial identity in a town where you are biracial and you are the only "brown" kid you've seen. Illustrations add a lot of humor and fill in details and sub-plots that aren't expressed in text, and they are the perfect addition. It's a quirky, sweet, funny, extremely charming book that I will be happy to recommend to 3rd-6th graders. This would make a fantastic family read-aloud and a great discussion book.
For the couple days I was carrying this around reading it, I just wanted to throw it in people's faces, saying, "Look at this grumpy chicken!! She can open latches and lay glass eggs!!! She's so grumpy!!!!! Ahhhhh!!!!!"
Oh yes. I loved this.
Oh yes. I loved this.
What fun!
I had no idea I'd enjoy a book about raising chickens! I love the clever format of letters from Sophie.
I had no idea I'd enjoy a book about raising chickens! I love the clever format of letters from Sophie.
This was so much fun. Nate and I read it at bedtime over the past month-ish. It has chickens with superpowers, which is fantastic, but it’s at least as much about Sophie finding her place in a new town and realizing that there are more friendly people than she thinks. It’s told all in letters, which is pretty cool. The drawing are hilarious and charming.
Sophie is mixed race (her father is white and her mother is Latina), and I appreciated the way race was handled in the story. It’s there, and Sophie has a few (age appropriate) interactions with people in town that show the challenges of being the only brown kid around.
Sophie is mixed race (her father is white and her mother is Latina), and I appreciated the way race was handled in the story. It’s there, and Sophie has a few (age appropriate) interactions with people in town that show the challenges of being the only brown kid around.
Upon finishing this book (well and during it also) I desperately wanted to run right out and purchase a flock of chickens, even if they didn't have super powers. This is a story of a city family struggling to make ends meet on their departed Uncle's farm that just happens to have pretty amazing chickens. I am pretty sure this will be one of the novels that makes my top ten at the end of this year.
Read this with my daughter for a library book club and it was just o-kay. We enjoy epistolary novels so this definitely appealed to us, but the plot was just completely meh, we were not engaged even a little, and frankly there was just way too much chicken talk and repetitiveness. There was no action, nothing to keep us coming back, the supernatural power aspect was never clear or really explored (like, why? etc.). We were just really bored, to be honest. All the action happened in the last 10 pages of the book. There were whole letters where you could read the first sentence of every paragraph and literally not miss a thing, so why so long? The letters were trying to accomplish too much I think, so they got bogged down and boring. The exploration of racism and prejudice was there, sure, but it was very weak. Not a book we'd recommend.
3.5 stars
This author visited my school earlier this year and she is awesome! She talked with the kids in my writing group and was very engaging and knowledgable. She had parts of her book for us to look at and when I started reading those, I was hooked and immediately put it on hold at the library.
Sophie is 12 when her family leaves LA and moves to a farm that her great-uncle left to them. Sophie misses the city and misses her friends. While exploring the farm, she finds an old chicken coop. She thinks it would be really great to have chickens on the farm again and writes a letter to the company whose brochure she found in the barn. The entire story is told in letters. And when her chickens do appear, they are anything but ordinary!
A great read for those who want no swearing, no sex, no drinking, no violence, etc. I could totally see this as a read-aloud as well - but since there are also well-done illustrations, those would definitely need to be shared with the audience as well.
This author visited my school earlier this year and she is awesome! She talked with the kids in my writing group and was very engaging and knowledgable. She had parts of her book for us to look at and when I started reading those, I was hooked and immediately put it on hold at the library.
Sophie is 12 when her family leaves LA and moves to a farm that her great-uncle left to them. Sophie misses the city and misses her friends. While exploring the farm, she finds an old chicken coop. She thinks it would be really great to have chickens on the farm again and writes a letter to the company whose brochure she found in the barn. The entire story is told in letters. And when her chickens do appear, they are anything but ordinary!
A great read for those who want no swearing, no sex, no drinking, no violence, etc. I could totally see this as a read-aloud as well - but since there are also well-done illustrations, those would definitely need to be shared with the audience as well.
http://librarianosnark.blogspot.com/2015/05/review-unusual-chickens-for-exceptional.html
Sofie's family inherits a farm, and she desperately wants to have chickens. She writes letters to her dead grandmother, great uncle, and a local farmer to talk about her life, and also about the chickens that start appearing on the farm. A neighbor is also trying to steal the chickens. Can Sofie save them and the farm?
I really liked this book. I'm a fan of novels in letters, and Sofie is adorable and a great protagonist.
I really liked this book. I'm a fan of novels in letters, and Sofie is adorable and a great protagonist.
3.5
I think I wanted to like this one more than I did. It's a cute story: girl moves to a farm, essentially inherits supernatural chickens and must defend them from shady town poultry lady. It's nicely diverse - she sometimes bemoans being the only brown person around (aside from the mailman) - and she writes letters to her abuela, dealing with her grief, as well as to her great-uncle (from whom she has inherited the chickens). It's a NICE story, but honestly didn't do much for me. The main character never really forges relationships with anyone - all relationships are pre-existing, or with dead people through letters. She becomes friendly with a town boy but it's very tenuous. It lacked a little heart, for me. But it ends nicely.
I think I wanted to like this one more than I did. It's a cute story: girl moves to a farm, essentially inherits supernatural chickens and must defend them from shady town poultry lady. It's nicely diverse - she sometimes bemoans being the only brown person around (aside from the mailman) - and she writes letters to her abuela, dealing with her grief, as well as to her great-uncle (from whom she has inherited the chickens). It's a NICE story, but honestly didn't do much for me. The main character never really forges relationships with anyone - all relationships are pre-existing, or with dead people through letters. She becomes friendly with a town boy but it's very tenuous. It lacked a little heart, for me. But it ends nicely.