Chicken Books - My Picks 2024
This year, as always, I’ve read a whole stack of books with a chicken theme or connection. As is my tradition, I’ve narrowed down that stack to a short list of favorites. Here’s the list along with some commentary. If you chose to move any of these gems onto your reading list, don’t forget to look for them at your local bookseller. If they’re not on the shelves, your bookseller will happily order them for you!
Chickens, Gin, and a Maine Friendship
The Correspondence of E.B. White and Edmund Ware Smith
Down East Books
2020
In 2018, staff at a bank in Damariscotta, Maine discovered several boxes in the vault while cleaning and tidying. The boxes, marked as property of the Skidompha Library, were returned to the library.
Torie DeLisle, of the Skidompha Library, recounts in the preface of this amazing book, “When I first opened the box containing these letters, I thought it was some kind of joke. No one just finds unknown material from one of America’s best-known essayists at a small-town library in Maine.”
But that’s exactly what happened. The contents of the boxes turned out to be letters exchanged between E.B. White and Edmund Ware Smith, covering a correspondence spanning more than a decade—from 1956 to Smith’s death in 1967. This remarkable discovery has been published in this book, offering readers a glimpse into a friendship built on wit, shared interests, and mutual respect.
Edmund Ware Smith was a well-known writer during his lifetime, celebrated for his stories about the outdoors—hunting, fishing, and life in the Maine woods—many of which were collected into nine books. He also served as editorial director of Ford Times for nearly two decades.
E.B. White, renowned for the children’s books Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, is also revered by writers everywhere for Elements of Style. And he was an editor and essayist for The New Yorker for over six decades.
In their initial letters, the two men addressed each other formally as “Mr. Smith” and “Mr. White.” However, by the second year of their correspondence, they had become “Smitty” and “Whitey.” A friendship naturally developed between these witty and insightful writers. Both were enthusiasts of the outdoors, keepers of Maine acreages, and adherents and appreciators of a well-prepared drink.
Their written conversation covered the range of their interests: Maple sugaring, rototillers, whiteface cows…But when Smith declared his interest in building a coop and getting some chickens, the conversation veered to poultry and centered on that topic a good long while. White had been raising chickens for years, and was more than happy to share, at length, his knowledge on the building and outfitting of coops and chicken farming in general. He wrote, “You have come to the right man for information about chickens…I bristle with all kinds of helpful information for an incipient poultryman, I’ve been raising birds ever since I was a kid.” And later: “The domestic egg is the beginning of your doom... First the henhouse, then the egg, then the grain bill... and at last the green lush pasture and the white-faced heifer bred by test tube arriving by Piper Cub because it’s quicker than the truck. Ah wilderness! That first egg, so deceptively beautiful, so germinal! I bought this place because it had a good anchorage for a boat. One day I noticed it had a barn. Now I don’t even have a boat.”
Smith replied, “I knew you were an accomplished poultryman, but I didn’t realize you’d made it a life’s work. How did you happen to take up writing as a sideline? Your zeal is contagious. With you as a consultant, I don’t see how we can miss.”
Eventually, Smith completed his henhouse and declared with pride, “I am the only man anywhere in these parts with E.B. White as a henhouse consultant.”
Over the years, their correspondence covered an array of topics that friends typically discuss, though the letters suggest the two seldom met in person. Nonetheless, the sincerity of their friendship is evident. These letters are a testament to their bond, offering readers the chance to witness the humor, intellect, and camaraderie of these two extraordinary men.
Fowl Play
A History of the Chicken from Dinosaur to Dinner Plate
Sally Coulthard
Head of Zeus Ltd
2022
Sally Coulthard has written a whole stack of entertaining and information-filled books. They have focused on sheep, earthworms, sheds, hedgehogs, owls and a variety of other subjects tethered to the natural history, science, and how-to of rural living. That she lives on a Yorkshire smallholding (what we in the US call an acreage) may go a long way toward explaining her choice of topics.
One would expect that Coulthard would maintain a flock of chickens on her smallholding. And of course she does. And, one would expect that, eventually, she would get around to directing her attention to the writing of a book about chickens. And she has. Fowl Play is that book.
The book begins with a discussion of chickens’ ancestral roots; the dinosaurian precursors that begat birds that begat Asian junglefowl that begat chickens. Within this discussion, Coulthard seems to have fallen for the pervasive rumor that chickens are somehow more closely related to T. rex than other birds, a rumor that I’ve taken issue with at great length. But she dispenses with that topic after a few sentences and by the end of the first chapter is completely done talking about everything that came before domestication. The rest of the book is the story of the journey that chickens and humans have taken together. And that story is a fascinating one.
That story starts with chickens’ original relationship with humans. They were not used as a source of meat or eggs, but were admired and respected ceremonial animals. Early chicken domesticators prized roosters and kept them for cockfights. The ancient Greeks viewed cockfights as entertainment, but with religious and ceremonial importance. Eventually, though, various ancient cultures began to value chickens as a food source. The Romans, for instance, acquired a taste for both chicken and eggs.
Chickens were downgraded from revered creatures to mere farm animals. And from there, the transformation of chickens was stark, particularly with the advent of industrial farming techniques in the late 19th and 20th centuries, leading to significant changes in their treatment and living conditions. While modern methods have resulted in a dramatic increase in egg and meat production, it has also meant an immense deterioration in chickens’ quality of life.
Chicken has become the world’s most consumed meat. 66 billion chickens are slaughtered each year. To create that mountain of meat, 22 billion chickens are alive at any given moment; three for every human. While humans have become the apex mammal, chickens have become the apex bird. There are three times more chickens in the world than all the wild birds combined.
One wonders, if given the choice, if chickens would willingly give up their status as apex birds for the free life in the Asian jungles that their progenitors enjoyed. Coulthard describes chickens as “capable of fear, anxiety, empathy and emotional distress…[and] anyone who has ever looked after a flock of chickens will know that each bird has its own personality or temperament.”
And yet we humans have become adept at treating these “intelligent, biddable, generous and full of character” birds “as objects in a system of food production that disregards their feelings and capacity for pain or misery…We’ve played a terrible trick on the chicken.”
In telling the story of the journey humans and chickens have taken together, Fowl Play gives us an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with these creatures and the ethical considerations of that relationship. If you’re a chicken person, you’ll want to read Fowl Play for the compelling story it tells. If you’re a human, the species that perpetrated the foul trick on these fowl, you should read this book.
A Conspiracy of Chickens
A Memoir
David Waltner-Toews
Wolsak and Wynn Publishers
2022
David Waltner-Toews is an erudite Canadian epidemiologist/veterinarian/author polymath. In addition to being a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph, the founding president of Veterinarians without Borders-Canada and the author of around a hundred peer-reviewed scholarly papers, he has written books. The books cover a range. Poetry, short stories, a murder mystery, an examination of zoonotic diseases, an exploration of the evolutionary, ecological, and cultural aspects of poop…And now, at last, he has written a chicken memoir. A pinnacle every author should aim for!
Waltner-Toews’ initiation into the society of backyard chicken keepers was not planned or purposeful. He candidly declares “I do not remember ever having wished to own chickens.” But in the beginning days of the Covid pandemic, as his seventieth birthday approached, his wife presented him with a box—one that emitted peeps. When he opened it, he discovered “a trembling handful of the cutest, fluffiest little multicolored puffballs, each with its own tiny beak and claws.”
His wife’s gift was not impulsive. He had recently been diagnosed with deep-vein thrombosis and placed on anticoagulants, with doctors advising him to exercise to improve circulation. “These chickens, apparently, were a therapeutic intervention.” And he suspected that his wife had an additional motive. “…to keep me from dark despair after seventy.” As every backyard chicken keeper knows, raising chicks involves exercise. More exercise than most people imagine. At first, the babies lived under a lamp in a box in the living room. Before long, they were escaping the box and were relocated to a larger one in an attic bedroom. Escaping the larger box was only a matter of time. Soon, there were “traces of excrement on the bedsheets.” Eventually, Waltner-Toews borrowed tools, enlisted a friend’s help, and built a backyard coop. The birds now had a permanent home, and he was officially a full-fledged backyard chicken keeper.
He was surprised at his own transformation. As an epidemiologist he had spent a certain amount of time thinking about chickens, but it was “in terms of food safety and avian flu.” And as a vet, “We never learned much about treating diseases in individual chickens. Who in their right mind would bring a chicken into an expensive vet clinic? Our training was mostly in how to diagnose and prevent or treat depression and disease in large groups.” He recounts how during his first year as a vet someone brought a pet chicken with bumblefoot into his clinic. “I felt awkward about spending a client’s money on a bird of so little value.”
But his transformation was real. By summer, “we sit out in the yard in our red Adirondack chairs, reading, sipping G&T’s, chatting, debriefing, listening to the…quiet nattering and purring of the pullets. The grass is grassy, the shrubs shrubby, the gin…well you get the picture.”
Eventually, he found himself talking to the hens—having conversations. And singing to them. As he spent time “watching the chickens, their brilliant red and orange combs and wattles, their brown, beige, white, barred and speckled bodies like fat, flowering shrubs waddling and running and flapping herky-jerky back and forth around the green yard,” he wondered “…if there is a sort of karma involved. Having dished out advice to everyone else, I am now being called upon to educate myself in the practicalities of backyard chicken raising.” And as he watched “I feel an unexpected twinge—excitement, sadness, happiness, concern—a tightening in my chest, water trying to escape my eyes: My babies. What is this? They are just chickens.”
This book is much more than a personal memoir about his flock. Waltner-Toews delves into the deep, complex relationship between humans and chickens, examining the ethics, ecology, and history of how we produce and consume food. He recalls telling his wife about discovering the chickens squabbling over and gobbling down a broken egg under the roost. “It’s just protein,” his wife remarks, prompting him to reflect, “Is there such a thing as unjust protein? Of course there is. The world of corporate-controlled agriculture.”
He argues that comparing a dozen backyard eggs to a dozen factory-farmed eggs goes far beyond economics. He observes, “The girls [in early April] look a bit tattered and are putting out more feces than eggs, but they are still eating and drinking, and they listen without criticism or judgment when I talk—unless I don’t bring a snack along. Why bother coming to the lecture if there are no interesting food scraps? I am learning once again, in this COVID-19 lockdown, that the value of a chicken cannot be calculated in eggs per dollar, or dollars per egg.”
As a fellow backyard chicken keeper who has also passed the seventy-year milestone, I deeply relate to the story this book tells. In many ways my perspective exactly mirrors his. Like Waltner-Toews, I find solace and joy in my flock. He writes of returning home after a trip: “I walked slowly across the yard to the coop, taking in deep clean breaths of crisp, Coronavirus-free air. The hens were just fine, coping with Canadian weather. They told me stories, none of them traumatic or earth-shaking. They advised me to go back inside and write poetry.”
Waltner-Toews closes with a thought borrowed from Montaigne: “I want death to find me planting my cabbages.” For him, this sentiment becomes, “I want death to find me teaching my chickens to jump for bread.” I couldn’t agree more, David Waltner-Toews. I couldn’t agree more.
Archie and the Accidental Chicken Heroes
Anita Sachlikidis
Ages 8-12
Clucky Feathers Books
2024
In a clearing in the woods by the school sits a strange apparatus that looks a lot like an old oven. But Archie knows it’s no ordinary appliance—it is a time portal! When he spots a sinister figure manipulating its controls, Archie uncovers the villain’s shocking plan: to unleash dinosaurs from the distant past and cause chaos in the present. But how can Archie stop this evil scheme? He’s just a kid!
Fear not! Archie is a kid, but he’s a kid with a secret weapon! His chickens! Nobody but Archie and his friend Josh know that Archie’s chickens have superpowers. Archie and Josh craft a plan. Then, Archie dons his superhero costume, an eagle mask, and with his courageous hens at his side, leaps into action!
Read this book for its adventure, humor and feathered heroics! But most importantly read it to find out if Archie and his incredible flock can save the day!
Sinclair
The Velociraptor Who Thought He Was a Chicken
Written by Douglas Rees
Illustrated by Galia Bernstein
Ages 4-8
Henry Holt and Company
2024
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, in this prehistoric story, the chicken comes first. Her name is Edna. Next comes the eggs, which Edna hatches and soon has a brood of seven chicks. But there is one egg left unhatched—a strange looking egg that Edna doesn’t remember laying. Edna sits on that last egg for a very long time and finally, one day, it hatches! And out comes Sinclair!
Sinclair has a snout with teeth and long, sharp claws. The odd-looking little bird looks at Edna and asks, “Mamma?” “Mamma,” Edna reassures. Sinclair tries to fit in with the other chicks, but it is quickly obvious that he is different. He can’t fly, his clucks sound disturbingly like roars, and pecking for food hurts his nose.
But then his siblings are in mortal danger and it is Sinclair who comes to their rescue, proving that being different can be a strength! The other chicks gather around Sinclair to thank him and Edna proudly tells him “You’re the best chicken ever!”
Galia Bernstein’s illustrations are as delightful and heartwarming as Douglas Rees’ story in this clever retelling of the ugly duckling story. Kids will be enchanted by this amusing and heartfelt tale that offers up an important lesson about celebrating differences and embracing individuality.
Chicken Little
The Real and Totally True Tale
Sam Wedelich
Ages 4-8
Scholastic Press
2020
I occasionally entertain myself with a deep dive into the bizarre falsehoods circulating online by visiting the Snopes website. Who falls for this stuff? And why? Of course, false rumors weren’t invented by the internet. They’re probably as old as language itself.
The classic Chicken Little story, about a false rumor spiraling out of control, has roots in early European folklore. But I don’t want to get too serious in discussing this retelling of the classic story. This book is pure fun! The Chicken Little in this book is an intrepid seeker of truth. For starters, she questions the accuracy of her name: “‘Little’ implies young. I am NOT a BABY. BABIES are easily scared, and I’m NOT AFRAID of ANYTHING!”
When something falls on her head, Chicken Little doesn’t succumb to panic (well, not for long). Instead, she launches a methodical investigation into what hit her. Ever the rational detective, she even checks in with the sky: “Hey Sky! Are you falling?”
“Me? No!” the sky responds. “I am a blanket of gas held by the pull of gravity. I DO NOT FALL!” But this innocent exchange is overheard, and before long, the false rumor that “the sky is falling” spreads across the henyard faster than an internet meme gone viral.
Chicken Little’s mission shifts: she must now stop the rumor from wreaking havoc. Despite her best efforts, including enlisting the help of Snipes—the fact-checking birds—her attempts to restore calm seem futile. That is, until she stumbles upon an unexpected solution. Read this witty, imaginative retelling of Chicken Little with your kids, and discover the resolution together. Not only will you all share a laugh, but you’ll also enjoy a lighthearted lesson on the importance of critical thinking and truth.
Chicken Talk
Words by Patricia MacLachlan
Pictures by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Ages 4-8
Katherine Tegen Books
2019
To be entirely clear, despite the title, the chickens in Chicken Talk do not talk. That would be preposterous. Chickens simply lack the vocal anatomy for speech. These chickens communicate by scratching words into the dirt. And that’s plausible, right? Scratching in the dirt is one things chicken do well—and constantly! Generations of readers have had no problem believing that E.B. White’s Charlotte could spin words into her web. Scratching words has to be easier than spinning them.
Nevertheless, after giving the flock their morning salad of lettuce and arugula, Farmer Otis, his wife Abby, and their children Willie and Belle are shocked when they find a message scratched in the dirt: “NO MORE ARUGULA.” Could the chickens have really written this? They must have! Nobody else was around. And only the chickens ever got arugula! Amazing! What will these chickens say next!
As it turns out, quite a lot. This amusing story by Newbery Medal-winning author Patricia MacLachlan is brought to life by Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s whimsical and charming illustrations of a flock with much to say. Whether you’re reading it with your kids, your chickens, or just by yourself, Chicken Talk is sure to bring plenty of smiles.
