MY FINE FEATHERED FRIEND : UNCORRECTED PROOF

New York, NY: North Point Press/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. Uncorrected Proof . Soft Cover/Uncorrected Proof. NEW - COLLECTIBLE/None as Issued. UNCORRECTED PROOF. BRAND NEW Copy, with April 2002 as Tentative Publication Date, and Tentative Price of $15.00 for same year's hardcover printings. One day, in the dead of winter, a handsome, jet black chicken crowned with a crimson combs appears in the Queen, NY yard of New York Times food critic William Grimes. This delightful little book is about this unusual visitor and all things fowl for both Grimes and his wife who are animal-loving. The spirited fowl settles in to home among a family cats; not only staking out its own turf in the backyard but even brazenly taking its "rightful" place in the "cafeteria line" for cat food. Charming chronicle through which Grimes deftly sprinkles historical background and anecdotes about chickens along with reactions of neighbors & colleagues to a new family pet. A tale of a natural relationship between animals and humans in an urban setting. The bird's moment of fame is short-lived for it vanishes as mysteriously as it arrived just days after Grimes began writing about it in his column. Fowl play? Or a chicken endowed with an independent soul and love of adventure?