Travels with My Chicken

Martin Gurdon
The Lyons Press (2005)
ISBN 1592287786
Reviewed by William Phenn for Reader Views (8/06)

Martin Gurdon is a hilariously funny man. His, is the typical dry humor that our British cousins are noted for. Martin lives in rural Kent, England with his wife Jane, a dog named Hoover, cat called Mollie and Sven, Egghead, Aloe, Vera, Tikka, Anne, Meringue, Brahms, Liszt, and Peeping, their ten chickens. Peeping chicken is Martins travel companion in “Travels with My Chicken.”

“Travels with My Chicken” is a compelling tale of the humorous antics of a man and his beloved feathered friend and travel companion. Martin begins by explaining that this book “Travels with My Chicken” is actually a story about how he traveled about the countryside promoting his first book “Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance.”The antics of that journey and all the unbelievable things that happened to him and Peeping are told here. Such things as the television studio interview, the photo opportunity at the book signing and many other hilariously funny situations-- one of my personal favorites was the Café’ incident.  Martin actually referred to the potatoes as French Fries rather than Chips, as I would have expected. In this Bookstore/Café’ Martin encounters Teenagers from the city that had never known anything about chickens. The questions put to Martin were so genuinely naive and very funny.

Midway through his travels, Martin has to return poor Peeping to the flock because the poor thing just got so stressed out. He continues the journey with Vera, a very well behaved hen. Vera accompanied Martin to a Writer’s Workshop and wound up making her debut at a minimal security prison. Then on to the high tech Henhouse (a modern-day design by some art college students). Here Vera had the opportunity to road test this creation. Many miles and many comical antics later, Martin wraps up his journey with this thought, “Why had I done it?  Fun. The whole thing had been a blast.”

That’s what I thought of this tremendously funny journal also. “Travels with My Chicken” is a book you can read in a night. It is fast moving and drew me in from the first chapter. If it is just silly fun reading for entertainment (not answers to the world hunger crisis) that you are looking for, then “Travels with My Chicken” is the book for you. I give it my highest and funniest A+ rating.

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