Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer

The rural setting of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer continues a long tradition of farm and countryside tales geared toward children that are designed to stoke the imagination in a wild and sometimes brutal setting. The rural children’s novel typically features a child main character, typically between the ages of 10 and 14, who experiences growth through agricultural responsibility or connection with nature and animals. This genre can be partially traced to Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose autobiographical children’s novels, the most famous of which are the Little House on the Prairie series, were published between 1932 and 1943. Wilder’s novels center around themes of family, community, agriculture, and responsibility—themes that persist in rural children’s literature in the contemporary era.

The connection between children and animals is another important element explored through rural children’s literature. One of the most prominent rural children’s novels is E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (1952). In this novel, eight-year-old Fern Arable’s connection with Wilbur the pig and the rest of the animals is a central part of the story. Another classic children’s novel, Where the Red Fern Grows (1961), tells the tale of 10-year-old Billy Colman and his hard work to buy and train hunting dogs. The bond between Billy and his dogs is a central thread in the novel. Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer continues the pattern; Sophie’s connection to her hens is a significant part of her journey as a poultry farmer and development as a character.

Other rural children’s novels use the brutalism of farm life and nature as a background for emotionally intense interpersonal interaction, as in Cindy Baldwin’s middle-grade drama Where the Watermelons Grow (2018), which takes place on a family’s struggling farm during an intense drought. The matriarch’s mental health grows worse by the day. The emphasis of the novel isn’t on the rural setting, but the rural setting intensifies the challenges of having a parent with a mental health condition. Additionally, John Steinbeck’s 1933 novel, The Red Pony, uses the cruel and brutal nature of farm life to force the main character, 10-year-old Jody Tiflin, to learn hard life lessons and mature as a person. Like Jody, Sophie of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer learns about the harsh realities of animal farming when she meets Chris and sees the bloody aftermath of a raccoon attack. To compound the tragedy, Chris’s mother has culled an entire clutch of chicks because of their dangerous powers. The brutal nature of raising animals on a farm and maintaining a farm through harsh conditions serves as an important part of the rural children’s novel, helping to develop the ideas of responsibility and the inevitability of nature taking its course. Overall, rural children’s novels in the past and present bridge the gap between urban and rural experiences and aim to instill ideas of responsibility and survival in young readers, illustrating how farm life can be rewarding yet treacherous for a young person.