The Chicken Chronicles

I suppose if anyone could write a memoir about rearing chickens, it would be Alice Walker. Although the book teeters dangerously close to being mushy and smarmy, Walker's beautiful prose just beautifully conveys her love and infatuation with the fluffy fowls. She calls herself the chickens' “mommy”, and her letters to her “girls” is an, er, acquired taste. But I found them funny and endearing, and at times I actually laughed out loud. The only essay that didn't do it for me is the essay where she talked about how her childhood was ruined because she wrung a chicken's head off for dinner (how's that for imagery). ;)