On the HahaFiction shelf
The Woefield Poultry Collective
by Susan Juby
Prudence Burns inherits a Vancouver Island farm and sees a chance to put her ideals about sustainable living into practice. The property has little to recommend it, and the bank is ready to foreclose. Her chances depend on an aging farmhand, a reclusive young blogger and an eleven-year-old who needs somewhere to keep her chickens.
From the author’s blurb
“one half-sheared, lonely sheep named Bertie”Read the full description at Susan Juby, author description
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What makes it funny?
In the opening, Prudence recalls poisoning her boyfriend with poorly preserved food and injuring him during a solar-panel project. When her composting worms die and stink up the apartment, she treats his complaints as another unreasonable reaction to her environmental work. Her confidence survives every piece of evidence against it.
The comedy at work
The four main characters give different accounts of farm life, so Prudence’s optimism has other voices to contend with. Her plans are grander than her practical skills, while Sara approaches her chickens with a seriousness the adults can’t always match.
Try this if…
The book’s appeal rests on people muddling toward a workable life together, with a farming experiment that keeps demanding skills they don’t have. Quill & Quire found its humor gentle rather than uproarious and thought the story’s determination to charm made it predictable.
Good to know
Alcohol addiction and a child’s troubled home life sit alongside the farm comedy. This book is published in the United States as Home to Woefield; it’s the same novel.
A few distinguishing details
- A sustainability enthusiast with little farming experience inherits a farm on the verge of foreclosure.
More funny contemporary & literary
Sources & further reading
- Quill & Quire review
Review
- Opening preview
Reading sample
- Edmonton Public Library
Library catalog
- Author
Author commentary
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