I Am Reading: The House With Chicken Legs and The House With Chicken Legs Runs Away by Sophie Anderson
The House With Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson 👉
| Illustrated by: | Elisa Paganelli |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Usbourne Publishing Ltd. |
| Publish date: | 3 May 2018 / 09 April 2026 |
Sometimes a book slips past you, even though you see it winning awards everywhere, even though you know you'd love it, and that was the case with Sophie Anderson's The House With Chicken Legs. So I was delighted to receive a copy of her sequel, The House With Chicken Legs Runs Away, as it gave me an excuse to go back and read the first book!
These books are lovely. In only a few pages, Anderson introduces you to Marinka and her world – and what a strange, glorious world it is (Marinka's jobs include mending a fence made entirely from bones…). For Marinka's grandmother is the Baba Yaga, who guides the dead into the afterlife. It's a beautiful calling, but all Marinka wants is to have a normal life, with normal friends. Instead, she lives in a house that occasionally stands up on its chicken legs and runs to another part of the world and another group of strangers…
The ease with which Anderson creates this world is amazing. Every bit of it feels right – from Marinka herself, to the house, to the magic that surrounds them. As secrets fall into the light, and some rather disastrous decisions are made, the plot rattles along to an ending that is partly sad but wholly beautiful.
And then, in The House With Chicken Legs Runs Away, everything changes again! This time there is something terribly wrong with the House itself, and Marinka will do anything she can to help. It's a joy to return to this world, and Marinka is as wonderful as ever. With her friends Benjamin and Jack (a jackdaw), she races across distant lands, meeting new characters and new magic. And again, while the ending is partly sad, it is a very moving reminder of how we find hope and renewal in loss.
A beautiful world and two beautiful stories, wonderfully told.
Many thanks to Usbourne for sending me review copies of both books.