Squawk of the were-children by Richard J Kendrick.
Almost nothing interesting ever happens in Deidre's little village, outside of the occasional traveling merchant or troupe of players visiting the marketplace. So it's no wonder that she spends her every free moment designing and building outlandish contraptions, and then relying on her semi-autonomous tongue to get her out of trouble--or dig her in deeper--when the device inevitably slimes Momma with something. 
A charming read. Slow but readable. 4*.

I so, so, SO wanted this to be funnier than it was. It was billed as a parody or send up, but it just missed the mark somehow

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley and therefore submitting this review under this premises. I have not received any further encouragement to give a positive review other than to be honest.

From the first sentence I knew that this was one book that would have the quirky sense of humour that I thoroughly enjoyed, displayed through the Main Character's thoughts (Deirdre) and her acquaintances, especially in the case of the conversations she has with Fyfe, her best friend. This is wonderfully spaced through all of the town occupants, and the visitors, and it gives me a very clear remembrance of the writing of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Yet even with those parallels to the writings of such great fantasy authors, Richard Kendrick keeps this entire story as exclusively his own.

The careful weaving in of chickens and the entire town revolving around these birds is what makes this book one of the greatest children's books I've read in a long time. The entire town is obsessed with them, with nearly every occupant owning at least one chicken, believing in all the tricks of the chicken witch, who is brilliantly portrayed by Fyfe's mum, and the town even being known throughout the lands for their clockwork master, Torin. These past two may be delicately peppered into the story, never over-used and always a delight to read interacting with Deirdre, but even with the ones who feature heavily such as Deirdre's mum, who may not be mechanically inclined like her daughter but suffers through the various mishaps and -oops- moments with near good natured sensibilities and logic, are a delight.

All the characters are rich in personality like this, especially with the peek into Deirdre's mind as she runs commentary through the entire story. It gives the reader easy access to the way of the workings of the other townspeople, and their land. I admit that this is where I ran into a slight issue, since it took me a few chapters to figure out that though there was quite a bit of -modern- conveniences, at the same time it was a steam-punk world with carts and school classrooms set out in a way that reminds me of the books from Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was barely a blip though, and I easily enveloped myself back into the story, not a bit happy when real life invaded and I had to do adult stuff.

I would highly encourage anyone to read this who loves the -greats- of Fantasy such as Pratchett and Gaimen, whether a child of eleven or an adult. I am planning to read this again on my Kindle and track down the paperback the next time I have a bit of extra money. I also have a slight hope that just maybe this will come out as an audiobook or on Audible so that I can download it. I've been listening to my favourites for several years now, and would love to add this book to it.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book was hilarious and I recommend it, although for me it went on a little bit too long to be perfect. It was beautifully written and full of characterization, quirks, fun, amusing asides, and an actual mystery. It was also weird, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It was weird in the sense that it seemed to straddle two completely different time periods simultaneously: the rustic of the Jane Austen, and the modern. For example, while bicycles were apparently new inventions, screenplays were not, so it made for a rather mind-boggling read, the reader never quite knowing what to expect.

As I mentioned, it felt rather long for a book which appears to be aimed at a middle-grade audience. Despite being amused and entertained by it, I have to say I was often wondering why it was taking me so long to get through it! I read it frequently and I'm not a slow reader, but I always seemed to be making awfully slow progress through it which was frankly off-putting. This drag effect was offset by the interesting story.

The relationship between the two main characters, Deidre, who leads us through this tale, and Fyfe, who is her sidekick, is choice and beautifully done. The two of them are an item and either don't know it yet, or are in serious denial, but it was a pleasure to read of their interactions. They were not the only two characters though, and rather than have a pair of startlingly realized actors playing against a backdrop of an otherwise bland ensemble, this world was full of equally engrossing and quite complex people, particularly the eccentric were-chicken investigator.

Even minor characters contributed fruitfully, as in when I read this, which made me laugh out loud despite not being a fan of fart jokes or stories:

Of course, then there'd been tea. And, apparently, the Master Seamstress was just about the only person Deidre had ever met that was completely impervious to Fyfe. In retrospect, maybe Deidre should have figured on that. She had once told Deidre, rather cryptically, to 'never trust a fart, dear.'

That felt so off the wall to me that I really did laugh out loud.

Deidre lives in a quiet village which nevertheless has a thriving market. Almost all of the activity in the village seems to revolve around making and selling things, and most of those things seem to revolve around wheat, chickens, and eggs, but which came first, I can't say. Deidre has no interest in that. Instead, she's focused on inventing, and by that I mean engineering, and she's really focused on that. Her father is supposedly trying to get her the position of smallest cog at the clock shop, a venue she loves, even as she detests its owner.

So she occupies her time inventing things, usually with disastrous consequences, and then trying to figure out how to solve the problem or whether she should move onto something else. The latter option tends to win, because her mind is all over the place. Into this orderly, if messy life, comes a kleptomaniacal were-chicken. Or is it merely someone impersonating a chicken? And whence cometh the bravery if they're impersonating a chicken? That last question may be irrelevant and/or ill-considered, but only Deidre and Fyfe can find the answer - and determined they are to do so.

I really liked this novel and I recommend it although as I said, it may be a bit long (and even a bit mature in reading style) for many middle-grade readers. Although the author has an annoying habit of omitting question marks from clearly interrogative sentences, the writing overall was excellent and appreciated, and even Amazon's crappy Kindle app couldn't ruin it for me!

Squawk of the Were-Chicken by Richard J. Kendrick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wanted something that tickled all my tail feathers and when I saw this on NetGalley, I just had to jump all over it.

I'm glad I did, too. I somewhat expected a tongue-in-cheek fantasy blowing some chicken or another into epic proportions a-la Pratchett, but here's the funny bit: I got a nice taste of fourth-wall literary post-deconstructionism from one character and a smart-mouthed tinkerer from another as they try and often fail to rid their little podunk kingdom of the greatest threat it has ever known!

WERE-CHICKEN!

What surprised me the most, however, was the rather detailed town, townsfolk, and all every-day life. I felt like no one was ever going to take the danger seriously until it was far too late, and that was despite or perhaps entirely because these folks were already chicken-happy to begin with! I mean, seriously, Chicken-prophesies? Chicken-remedies, professional egg-launchers... well, the last was just an accident, but still... you get the idea.

It didn't remain nearly as light as I'd hoped but as a well-rounded novel with not quite as much humor as I might expect from a title like this, I still had a good time.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to check out this author's other works thanks to this!

Two stars.

Recommended for: Readers of middle grade novels who enjoy mysteries without much danger or violence. Readers who enjoy lots of references and allusions to pop culture. Sparking discussion about the importance of critical thinking and the dangers of uninformed mob mentality.

What I liked.

The basic idea for the plot. The themes. A heroic female protagonist interested in engineering with supportive parents and a male best friend who was not a romantic interest. Mhairi and Dominique - wish there was more of both! The tongue-in-cheek commentary about the adult characters.

What I did not find engaging.

The protagonist. The world building. The execution of the plot.

The protagonist.

Very simply, Deidre does not come across as an authentic 12-year-old girl. Her internal dialogue reads more like an adult’s impression of a pre-teen girl than anything else. She frequently mentions her age, as though to remind us that she really is 12, and vacillates wildly between language that a much younger child would use (e.g. “butterflies in the tummy”, “oh boy oh boy ohboyohboy they were here”) and the provinces of only the most precocious children (e.g. “apogee”, “getting the Goldilocks inquest”, “made manifest”). Much of the narrative is pushed along by Deidre’s internal dialogue, which is a shame because the book is much funnier and more interesting when Deidre is casting a critical eye on the adults in her village.

The setting.

The inhabitants of Deidre’s village place a great deal of emphasis on learning, literature, and the acquisition of reliable knowledge from credible sources. Deidre makes the tongue-in-cheek suggestion (in the midst of what feels like endless internal soliloquy) that the villagers only trust information that they find in multiple peer-reviewed sources. On the other hand, despite being well-educated as children, the villagers grow up to live stultifying lives defined by incredibly specialized career tracks and are easily taken in by an ever-growing number of charlatans who are engaged in what should have been an incredibly ineffective (yet international) conspiracy. They are living in a pre-industrial society with a benevolent king-as-accountant with an appreciation for periodical journals, extremely specialized and limiting career tracks which work on an apprenticeship model, a formalized school system (in which children not only learn to read and write but also learn to deconstruct historical and fictional texts with an eye to forensic analysis and to how fairy tales perpetuate socio-political hegemony), and a valued public library. Bluntly, I thought too many elements of the setting were at odds with one another. Children, who are presumably the intended audience for this book, probably would not share this concern, but I had trouble envisioning how such a society developed. While outlandish settings can often work to a story’s advantage, this one kept yanking me right out of the narrative. Fyfe, the protagonist’s best friend, knows a great deal about histories, mythologies, and technologies of which everyone else in the village is unaware. Among other things, he talks about dinosaurs, sirens and the Doppler Effect, traditional lore about werewolves, all to the utter bafflement of those around him. Oh, and then there’s the random and unnecessary Doctor Who reference: at one point, Fyfe explains while pontificating about time travel: “As I understand it, it’s generally done with a blue box. However, I think any time machine will do.” He and another character also frequently use old-fashioned idioms and phrases that confuse everyone else, including sweet cheeks, head honcho, big cheese, jive, and buck up. At one point, Deidre says that “when something really captures everyone’s attention, and everybody keeps talking about it, [Fyfe] says it’s gonvyrule”. As in “gone viral”. All of this made me think that the novel was set in some sort of alternate future, in which some disaster had caused most people to collectively forget the scientific and technological knowledge we have today. The concept is interesting, but the author’s half-hearted development of the idea fell flat. Had the idea been fleshed out more fully, it might have seemed more central to the world building and to the plot of the novel. Instead, it felt superfluous and distracted from the events of the story.

The plot.

Plenty of red herrings but real tension develops late in the book. Is there a were-chicken? Who could the were-chicken be? The mysterious out-of-towners? The chicken farmer with a knack for advanced technologies like egg incubators and a secret to hide? The local chicken-witch, who has crescent moons painted all over her chicken coop? The protagonist, who starts clucking in her own thoughts halfway through the book? The twin bullies who make cryptic remarks about coq au vin while wearing chicken suits? Too much was going on too superficially to engage my interest for the first three quarters of the book.

The last 50 pages of the book were much better than the rest, probably because they were more action-oriented and relied less on the protagonist’s internal dialogue. The end of the book also developed the story's themes in a way that felt engaging and important.

If the author cut the passages implying that the story was set in a pre-industrial future and included fewer scenes that revolved solely around Deidre's internal dialogue, I would have given the book three stars. As it is, it's okay, but I did not personally enjoy it.