Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken?

by Kelly Jones, Katie Kath (Illustrator)

Overview

This laugh-out-loud sequel to Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer has EVEN MORE MAGIC CHICKENS!

Twelve-year-old Sophie Brown is finally settling into her new home and her new role as keeper of some highly unusual chickens—chickens with secret superpowers!

But the arrival of two new magical chickens for her flock and some unusual eggs to be incubated and hatched (what will their superpowers be?), plus an impending inspection from the Unusual Poultry Committee (who even knew this existed?) has Sophie feeling pretty stressed out. Her older cousin, Lupe, is coming to stay with her family, which is great—but will Lupe like chickens too? And on top of it all, Sophie's first day at her new school is rapidly approaching!

In this wildly funny and quirky novel told in letters and lists and quizzes, Sophie learns that even an exceptional poultry farmer can use some help.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524765910
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	11/06/2018
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

KELLY JONES has been a librarian and a bookseller and is a raiser of (much-loved but fairly ordinary) chickens. She is now a novelist and the author of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer and Murder, Magic, and What We Wore. You can find her at her website: curiosityjones.net, or on Twitter and Instagram: @curiosityjones.

KATIE KATH earned an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and works as a freelance illustrator. You can learn more about her work at ktkath.com. Or follow her on Instagram at KatieKathDraws, or on Twitter at @kathk_me.

Editorial Reviews

2018-08-20

An almost-13-year-old expands her poultry-farming operation in this sequel to Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer (2015).

Sophie Brown has just received two new unusual chickens to add to her flock, but that's not all—she's about to receive fertile eggs, so she is putting together an incubator and learning all she can about how to nurture chicken eggs and get them ready to hatch. Resourceful and thoughtful, Sophie documents her entire process—emailing with Hortensia, a chicken vendor; taking detailed notes about her unusual (they casually teleport objects or become invisible) hens; and writing letters to deceased but beloved adults Agnes, Great-Uncle Jim, and Abuelita. School is about to start, and Sophie's excited that her cousin Lupe will be coming to stay as she attends college nearby, but nothing can compare to the hatching of new chicks. Sophie's lower socio-economic status and identity as a brown-skinned, biracial Xicana figure into the plot heavily without reeking of tokenism. (Sophie's mom is Mexican-American; her dad is white.) Readers unfamiliar with the first book should feel caught up after a few dozen pages of this epistolary novel. Jones has married the trappings of traditional magical realism—small towns, quirky people, almost-normal animals—with the angst of being the out-of-place kid in middle school, and it's no gimmick: just good worldbuilding and storytelling. Kath's humorous spot art is a delightful complement.

Charming, thoughtful, and clever. (Magical realism. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews

**International Latino Book Awards — Best Youth Latino Focused Chapter Book — 2nd place!**

"Charming, thoughtful, and clever." — Kirkus Reviews

"A funny and relatable realistic fantasy sure to be enjoyed by farm-dwellers, urbanites, and everyone between." —SLJ

"In the middle grade follow-up to Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, protagonist Sophie Brown has brand-new magical chickens to care for, is anxious about entering a new school, and is doubly worried about an upcoming inspection from the Unusual Poultry Committee. Quirky illustrations and the integration of email correspondences, letters, lists, and other texts provide a multidimensional reading experience." -- Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher