Awesome book! Made me in love with weird looking chickens!

Funny book. I felt like I could actually take up chicken farming after reading this humorous romp about a city kid adjusting to living on a rural family place in dry So. Cal. Great for kids and adults who enjoy chickens or humorous reads.
Rose in PR

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones is the Read Across Lawrence for Kids title for 2017! It’s a story about family, friendship and raising magical chickens.

Sophie Brown is twelve and just moved with her family from LA to the rundown farm they inherited from their great-uncle. She misses her beloved abuela and writes to her often, though she’s deceased. Everything seems pretty bleak and boring to Sophie until a grumpy chicken, Henrietta, appears. Not only does Henrietta scowl with the best of them, she can levitate objects! Soon more unique chickens appear and Sophie must learn to care for her small flock. She starts a correspondence course with Agnes of Redwood Farm Supply to learn how to tend her chickens and gets mysterious typewritten responses along with her lessons. But not only do the chickens need food and water, they need to be protected from a crafty thief who wants these magical birds in their coop. Will Sophie be able to protect her unusual flock? Find out in this quirky story of farm life and friendship told through letters, articles, to-do lists, and quizzes!

This book was great! I loved the unusual chickens and their powers. I have chickens of my own, but the only power they have is the ability to wolf a worm down live! This book was entertaining, and I really liked reading it.

I was drawn to this book because I secretly want my own unusual chickens but I enjoyed reading it because it was a thoroughly entertaining story. With good doses of humour Jones takes the reader on a celebration of family, farm life, community and valuable life lessons including those learned from caring for some really incredible chickens. Full of fun, wit and a few surprises too.

As so often happens in upper elementary novels, 12 year Sophie has to deal with a new living situation without much help from her parents(her mom is busy with her work, dad looking for a new job and grandmother has recently died). The family has recently moved to a farm. At first I thought i would not be interested in a book taking place on a farm and neither would kids who live in the city but I was wrong. The book was laugh out loud funny with some important life lessons intertwined within the story, much of it told in the form of letters.

Sophie Brown may be new to chicken farming, but she's certainly an exceptional person who excels under unusual circumstances. She's a city girl trying to learn her new rural landscape after her parents inherit her great-uncle's farm. As if that wasn't hard enough, she gradually learns the farm comes with a now a scattered collection of chickens with mysterious, minor superpowers and a thieving neighbor trying to track them down. Sophie tells her story through a series of letters she writes to her dead great-uncle, abuelita, and a few others, and it reads much like a diary. She and her narration are engaging, admirable, relatable, quirky, and fun.

Fabulous and funny! A heartwarming tale.

I almost put this book down when I saw it was only letters. I'm glad I didn't. A heart warming story of a mixed spanish girl that moves to a farm. She learns how to take care of some unusual chickens. The girl has a nice personality and deals with her new situations in a good way. I liked the story despite it written in letter form.

I really liked this book and thought that it worked on many levels. New kid in town, dealing with death, gaining independence, making friends, and of course, some very interesting chickens! The story unfolds as the heroine writes letters cum diary entries to distant family members. Fun and charming!