Customer Reviews

The Chicken Doesn't Skate

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A humorous story about a chicken named Henrietta and the hockey culture of an American elementary school. Milo Neal, son of scientist Victor Neal, raises a specimen for a science project about the life cycle. The entire class and hockey team becomes involved in caring for Henrietta, adopting her as mascot and hero. Everyone is outraged to learn that Milo's final step will be to sacrifice the specimen for his experiment. Henrietta is kidnapped and attends a hockey game against a winning Canadian team. Henrietta brings victory on the ice and then escapes in a flurry from the rink to the school's exhibit hall, flying right into the arms of Milo Neal. What will be her fate? It is well written with the usual humor, excitement and crazy antics that can be expected of Korman. The reader is drawn into the story, knows the characters and worries for the chicken's life. Chapter entries are written from varying points of view, including: Adam Lurie (team captain), Zachary Gustafson (student and writer), Milo Neal (Henrietta's owner), Mrs. Baggio (science teacher), Joey Sorrrentino (hockey player), Kelly Marie Ginsberg (student and want to be psychologist) and Coach Crenshaw. The title should appeal to a middle elementary school audience.

I sent this book to my son as a treat while he was at summer camp last year. He was 9 1/2 then and is a real hockey fan. He LOVED this book! Definitely recommended.

This book loves chickens! In the a boy named Milo Neal the school science geek gets a baby chick to study for a science fair. He wants to study how it fits into the food chain, but when he takes it school everybody goes crazy. The name her Henrietta and make her their hockey mascot. Everybody falls in love with Henrietta. Milo is going to cook the chicken to complete th project. Will Henrietta live or will she be eaten!
By,
Cory

I will say I preferred I want to Go Home, but Korman has matured in his writing, and that's good! This is a very enjoyable story where I still laughed out loud!!!

I think that everyone who likes to laugh should read this book. I like how the author layed it out with the different kids saying their opinion and thoughts, like a page of a journal. Kelly Marie and Milo were probably my favorite characters. Kelly was obsessed with Henrietta and Milo wouldn't even call Henrietta by her name... he called he his Specimen! The end has a funny twist to it...but I can't tell! Read this book. It is soooo funny!

Quick note: although it says TessL on top, that's my mom, not me. I can't figure out how to change it, so I am her thirteen year old daughter. Just wanted to make that clear.

I had already read this book myself when I was younger, but I kept remembering things I had forgotten as I read it aloud to my younger brother. My bro absolutely loved it! When I first started reading books to him, he put up a big fuss, but now he requests more books by Gordon Korman and asks me to keep reading when I reach the end of the chapter!

This book is SO funny, and has interesting and eccentric characters who take turns narrating the story. Each person has a different view of the chicken; to Kelly Marie she is a kindred spirit, to Adam, the hockey captain, she is a good luck charm, Zachary thinks of her as a mortal enemy, and to Milo, she is simply the specimen. Milo is using Henrietta (as the chicken was named by his classmates,) as the subject in his science project, which is entitled The Life Cycle of a Link in the Food Chain. His plan is to raise her, and then, when she has matured enough, bring her to the butcher's and feed the meat to the science fair judges, thus completing the food chain. As you can imagine, when this news was made public, it threw the school in an uproar. Henrietta had gained quite a large fan club, and there was a large outcry to spare the chicken. Milo, however, stands firm, insisting that the whole point of his project was to show that there WERE no exceptions to the food chain.

Included in the story are several comical hockey games, quite a few chase scenes, a wild party thrown for Henrietta, (which ended with a firemen rescue to get her out of the tree,) a chicken-napping attempt, and a lot of laughs.

I greatly enjoyed this book, and I'm glad my brother did too. I wouldn't say we're the best siblings in the world; we don't hug each other all the time, and we have an understanding that I will kill him if he touches my journal, but we enjoy spending time together; and books are a fun way to do that.

We are currently reading Radio Fifth Grade, another classic from Gordon. I am a happy sister.

In the chicken doesn't skate a kid named Milo Neal(who moved from L.A. to Minnesota), has a science project to do for his sixth grade class. When he decides to do it on a chicken, everybody wants to make it a class pet. Everybody ignores him and someone new takes the chicken home each weekend.
Zachary Gustafson loves to write movie scripts. He thinks that he will never be able to get it to a person in the movie business, until he meets Milo. Milo is the son of the famous Victor Neal(a great scientist who has his own T.V. show, and he has won several emmy awards). Zachary thinks that if he becomes Milo's bestfriend he can give Milo some of his scripts to give to his dad, to give to some big Hollywood producer. So Zachary tries to become best friends with Milo, thinking that if they were friends Milo would give some of Zachary's scripts to him. But the truth be told, Milo doesn't like Zach.
The Ranger hockey team is 0-5 and they need a miracle to win any of their games. Then the Chicken Henrietta appeared at one of their games and they won it! The team thinks that the Chicken is good luck. Just when everybody gets really excited about having the chicken, Milo must compete the final phase for his project.

I like the book because it was about a chicken that was a science project and a mascot for the South Middle Rangers for their hockey team.

Gordon Korman has a knack for writing hilarious and totally ridiculous stories while even making them sound believable. This fast-paced story involving the fate of a chicken named Henrietta is full of interesting and likable characters. Definitely recommended for grades 5-7.

As an old time Gordon Korman fan, this book was a real treat! While not quite up to the (very high) standard set by his classics (No Coins Please, I Want To Go Home, Son Of Interflux, etc.), this book is a fun read. It's fast paced, funny, has the patented Korman characters you can't figure out why you love, and best of all, unlike so many of his good books, it's in print! Some of his more recent books were disappointing, but with this one, he seems to have gotten back on track.