Fiona wants to fix people's problems--but what if she's the one who needs help? Kelly Jones, author of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, delivers a funny, take-charge heroine kids will love.
Fiona may have problems, but she's no damsel in distress. She'd rather be the one wielding the wand in the story: she wants to be the fairy godperson. So when her mom sends her off to stay with relatives in a place called Cold Hope for the summer, Fiona decides it's time to start training for the role.
And wow, do these people need help! Aunt Becky's bakery is failing, Great-uncle Timothy draws but never speaks, and Great-Aunt Alta is the gloomiest, doomiest woman she's ever met.
But helping people in the real world isn't as easy as it sounds in fairy tales. Change is messy. What if she's actually making things worse?
Still, with practice (and some deep breaths), Fiona will discover that sometimes messy is okay. Sometimes things do get worse before they get better. And sometimes trying to help fix other people's problems can help you work on your own...
Fans of Katherine Applegate and Erin Entrada Kelly will love this quirky story of a determined girl, and some extraordinary chickens.
Twelve-year-old Sophie Brown feels like a fish out of water when she and her parents move from Los Angeles to the farm they’ve inherited from a great-uncle. But farm life gets more interesting when a cranky chicken appears and Sophie discovers the hen can move objects with the power of her little chicken brain: jam jars, the latch to her henhouse, the entire henhouse....
And then more of her great-uncle’s unusual chickens come home to roost. Determined, resourceful Sophie learns to care for her flock, earning money for chicken feed, collecting eggs. But when a respected local farmer tries to steal them, Sophie must find a way to keep them (and their superpowers) safe.
Told in letters to Sophie’s abuela, quizzes, a chicken-care correspondence course, to-do lists, and more, Unusual Chickens is a quirky, clucky classic in the making.
A new quirky-funny book from the author of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer about a boy whose plans for the summer go sideways when the ghost of his great-great-grandmother demands his attention.
HD Schenk is a maker--an inventor, someone who builds cool stuff. He's got a plan for the summer: he'll build his own computer and enter it in the county fair. Then everyone will know who he is and what he can do.
To earn enough money for the parts he'll need, HD has promised to clear out his uncle's overflowing basement. No big deal, right? But there's more in that basement than HD bargained for. On his first trip down there, a voice only he can hear starts talking to him. About...sauerkraut?
Who knew the ghost of his great-great-grandmother was haunting an old pickling crock? She's got a grand plan, too. She wants HD to help make her famous recipe for sauerkraut and enter it in the county fair so that she can be declared pickle queen.
After some initial shock, HD is willing enough to help. This ghost is family, after all. But only HD can really see and hear his Oma, which is going to make it hard for her to win on her own...
Kelly Jones spins a wonderfully goofy ghost tale that celebrates creative problem solving, family ties, and makers of every variety.
