Kelly Jones’s 2015 middle-grade magical realism novel, Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, is an epistolary novel that follows 12-year-old Sophie Brown as she adjusts to her family’s new rural life and begins her journey as a poultry farmer. Through Sophie’s journey, this novel explores themes of grief, legacy, responsibility, and community. This study guide follows the First Yearling Edition 2016 paperback version of the novel. Plot SummaryAfter 12-year-old Sophie Brown’s family moves to... Read Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer Summary

Wendy Cope’s “Valentine,” from her second collection Serious Concerns (1992), balances technical virtuosity beneath conversational, vernacular language to create a deceptively simple poem. Cope’s poem is a triolet, which is a fixed form that traditionally utilizes strict requirements. Cope both embraces and parodies the form with heavy-handed rhyme, swinging meter, and mixed metaphor. Beneath the poem’s gleeful take on tradition and poetic devices, Cope conveys a bittersweet, apologetic sincerity that sets this work apart from... Read Valentine Summary

“Valentine for Ernest Mann” is a four-stanza, free verse poem published in 1994 as a part of Naomi Shihab Nye’s collection Red Suitcase. It was written in response to a real-life experience in which an eighth grade boy approached Nye on Valentine’s Day and asked her to mail him a poem. “Valentine for Ernest Mann” begins with a direct address to Ernest and moves into an Ars Poetica, or a meditation on what poetry is... Read Valentine for Ernest Mann Summary

Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) is a 2025 cozy murder mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto. The sequel to the highly popular Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2022), this novel tracks tea shop owner and amateur sleuth Vera Wong as she stumbles across the mysterious death of social media influencer Xander Lin. When Xander’s body is discovered in San Francisco’s Mission Bay and no one seems to know his true identity... Read Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) Summary

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (2023) by Jesse Sutanto is a cozy mystery about 60-year-old Vera Wong, a bored, lonely woman looking for a new lease on life—which comes in the form of a corpse on the floor of her tea shop. She sets out to solve the crime herself, and in the process, she meets four young people who need the mothering that she was born to give. This guide is based on... Read Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers Summary

Commissioned and developed by South Coast Repertory, Vietgone by Qui Nguyen premiered October 4, 2015. The play explores characters’ inner conflicts through music and singing. Playwright Qui Nguyen, a television and film writer, cofounded New York City’s Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company. Another of his plays is She Kills Monsters, and he often uses pop culture and multimedia in his productions. Vietgone follows the story of his parents, who met as refugees in the American South... Read Vietgone Summary

Vile Bodies, a satiric novel by English author Evelyn Waugh, is about the dislocation of the generation that came of age just after the Great War of 1914-1918. Published in 1930, it takes place in the late 1920s, soon after a worldwide economic depression ended an era of freewheeling economic speculation. Protagonist Adam Fenwick-Symes acts as a surrogate for Waugh himself as he navigates one wild party after another and finds them populated by a... Read Vile Bodies Summary

An older narrator named Geoffrey looks back on himself as a 21-year-old American arriving at a small Tuscan train station near the end of the millennium. A recent college graduate with a degree in Archives and Record Management, Geoffrey has answered a newspaper advertisement for an "adjutant" to catalog the collection of a Baronessa, an Italian baroness, at a country house in Tuscany before Christmas. His college adviser, who disapproved of both his academic major... Read Villa Coco Summary

War with the Newts by Karel Čapek was originally published in Czech as Válka s Mloky in 1936. The novel has been adapted as a play and a musical, including Kenny Murray and Ken Campbell’s 1981 theatrical version and the 2005 BBC Radio adaptation. Čapek is known for his play R.U.R. (1921), which introduced the word robot to science fiction. He also published several novels before War with the Newts.Čapek’s experience as a journalist can... Read War with the Newts Summary

Published in 1989 by Louis Sachar, Wayside School Is Falling Down is a middle-grade short story cycle with elements of fantasy and absurd humor. Each loosely interconnected story focuses on a different character at the eccentric Wayside School. As the tapestry of stories unfolds, the characters’ quirky behavior and ridiculous predicaments reflect a broader emphasis on celebrating individual freedom and demonstrating the resulting absurdities that such freedom can cause. Wayside School Is Falling Down won... Read Wayside School is Falling Down Summary

Tim Gautreaux’s “Welding with Children” debuted in the March 1997 issue of The Atlantic. Gautreaux was born in Louisiana, and his novels and short stories, like this one, draw from his experience of growing up in a Southern, blue-collar family. His characters include a range of rural Louisiana residents, many of whom struggle with societal and generational changes. Gautreaux has received numerous awards, most notably the 1999 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award for... Read Welding with Children Summary

We’re Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey is a middle grade science fiction novel about the discrimination humans face migrating to a new planet after their own violent tendencies destroy Earth. The book was nominated for the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award, Florida Sunshine State Book Award, and the Maine Student Book Award in 2020, as well as the Massachusetts Children’s Book Award and New Mexico Land of Enchantment Book Award in 2021. Geoff... Read We're Not from Here Summary

Josh Sundquist is a cancer survivor, Paralympic ski racer, motivational speaker, and stand-up comedian. Sundquist’s memoir Just Don't Fall: How I Grew Up, Conquered Illness, and Made It Down the Mountain was published in 2010 and became a national bestseller. While his first memoir showed how he was able to overcome health challenges to become a sporting hero, his second book We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Story (2014) deals with the most... Read We Should Hang Out Sometime Summary

Published in 2022, What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is a popular science book by Randall Munroe. A physicist and former NASA roboticist, Munroe is best known for his Hugo Award-winning webcomic xkcd as well as his contributions to the popular science genre. He has published multiple best-selling nonfiction books and has lectured across the US in addition to running several popular online blogs and channels.In this sequel to his... Read What If? 2 Summary

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, written by Randall Munroe and published in 2014, is a collection of humorous yet sound answers to unusual queries about science. From how many laser pointers it would take to light up the Moon to how many LEGO bricks would be needed to bridge the Atlantic Ocean, What If? bravely answers dozens of weird inquiries with answers that, though true, are often stranger than the questions... Read What If? Summary

Published in 2024, What in the World?!: A Southern Woman’s Guide to Laughing at Life’s Unexpected Curveballs and Beautiful Blessings is a memoir by stand-up comic Leanne Morgan. Hailing from rural Tennessee, Morgan traces her life from her upbringing working in the family meat processing facility, through her boy-crazy college years, and into the ups and downs of life as a wife and mother. Through it all, Morgan had the sense that she was meant... Read What in the World?! Summary

Gordon Korman is the author of Whatshisface, a novel for young readers published in 2018. Whatshisface centers on two boys from different centuries who work together to expose the truth about William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Romeo and Juliet (1595). As the story merges Shakespeare and Elizabethan England with the present, it’s a historical novel, a ghost story, and a comedy. Whatshisface is also heartfelt, tackling themes like The Search for Belonging, Keeping Secrets, and Linking... Read Whatshisface Summary

“What Teachers Make” is a poem by Taylor Mali, an acclaimed performance poet, educator, and advocate for teachers worldwide. He’s published five collections of poetry and one chapbook. With over nine years of experience teaching in the classroom, Mali draws on personal experiences to explore themes of education, worth, and honesty in “What Teachers Make.” Written in the passionate, rhythmic, and occasionally rhyming style of spoken word slam poetry, Mali’s poem refuses to define a... Read What Teachers Make Summary

What This Comedian Said Will Shock You (2024) is a book by American comedian and talk show host Bill Maher. It is divided into short essays based on the editorial segments in his talk show, Real Time with Bill Maher. In these essays, Maher focuses on the impact of cancel culture and the growing political polarization in America. He criticizes both Democrats and Republicans, reflecting on how politics have changed since his first show in... Read What This Comedian Said Will Shock You Summary

When Life Gives You Lululemons is a novel by American author Lauren Weisberger. Originally published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster, the novel is the third installment in Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada universe. The title is preceded by the bestselling 2003 novel The Devil Wears Prada and its 2013 sequel, Revenge Wears Prada. In this third novel, Weisberger continues Emily Charlton’s story, years after leaving her life and career at the fashion magazine Runway... Read When Life Gives You Lululemons Summary