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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Fantastic, truly. As a person who has raised chickens and lost loved ones I miss every day, I love this book with fierce admiration.
https://vst3in.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/my-week-in-books-you-gotta-read-these/ Further review on my blog.
https://vst3in.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/my-week-in-books-you-gotta-read-these/ Further review on my blog.
Absolutely loved it. Excellent diversity, great story, and an ending that was satisfying and yet could lead to a sequel.
Super solid and fun read. I think this will be another one that gets used in classrooms a lot. Great for teaching kid ethics.
Light, funny, and full of (magic) chickens. I read this to see if my kid might like it, and he might, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it myself.
A very cute book for kids (and chicken-loving adult librarians). A simple read for ages as young as 7 or 8, but I feel it's mostly intended for kids just learning to keep chickens. It has some great information about types of chickens and how to care for them, all wrapped up in a cute story. Sophie has just moved onto her great Uncle Jim's farm from L.A. with her busy mother and clueless father. Then she encounters the first of many unusual chickens her great uncle used to raise. And these chickens are even more strange than your average chicken! But never having raised a chicken before, Sophie takes all this in stride, writing letters to a local farm, asking for tips and advice. But a neighbor seems to want to steal these special chickens, so Sophie has to deal with that too.
All of it is told in the form of letters from Sophie to the poultry farm (whose responses are quite strange), her deceased great uncle, and also her deceased grandmother. Sophie has a very unusual, but casual, view on death, but she believes that while her relatives are dead, they still watch over her and listen. I thought that was pretty neat. Also, this books is great for kids who have just moved (Sophie moved from the big city to farm country) and also she is Hispanic, and she makes mention a couple times how she's used to people thinking she's Mexican or hired farm help.
Anyway, a GREAT book for chicken fans (like me), cute characters, and a fun little story.
All of it is told in the form of letters from Sophie to the poultry farm (whose responses are quite strange), her deceased great uncle, and also her deceased grandmother. Sophie has a very unusual, but casual, view on death, but she believes that while her relatives are dead, they still watch over her and listen. I thought that was pretty neat. Also, this books is great for kids who have just moved (Sophie moved from the big city to farm country) and also she is Hispanic, and she makes mention a couple times how she's used to people thinking she's Mexican or hired farm help.
Anyway, a GREAT book for chicken fans (like me), cute characters, and a fun little story.
3 1/2 stars. Entertaining and a lot of fun! I liked how matter of fact the main character was about the assumptions people make about her based on her skin color--it was part of the story, but not a distraction from what she was actually doing. Also, chickens with superpowers was an odd but intriguing premise! (Edited to add: I also loved how much real information there was about chickens and how to take care of them!)
On the flip side, I was disappointed just how much this book went with the 'parents are useless and dumb' assumptions that are prevalent in children's books. She spent most of the book hiding things from her parents, when not outright lying to them or deliberately manipulating them into getting what she wanted. It was also a bit uncomfortable how much the mom was running the family and the dad was extremely passive.
On specific content issues, there is animal death, which is not shown directly, but there's some dramatic aftermath shown, and could definitely be upsetting for some readers. There's some discussion of different beliefs about what happens after death, and an implication that where you go depends on what you believe--not a fan of that relativism. Also,along similar lines, a ghost is revealed at the end of the book .
On the flip side, I was disappointed just how much this book went with the 'parents are useless and dumb' assumptions that are prevalent in children's books. She spent most of the book hiding things from her parents, when not outright lying to them or deliberately manipulating them into getting what she wanted. It was also a bit uncomfortable how much the mom was running the family and the dad was extremely passive.
On specific content issues, there is animal death, which is not shown directly, but there's some dramatic aftermath shown, and could definitely be upsetting for some readers. There's some discussion of different beliefs about what happens after death, and an implication that where you go depends on what you believe--not a fan of that relativism. Also,