The House with Chicken Legs Runs Away
This is a sequel to the immensely popular middle-grade fantasy The House with Chicken Legs, published in 2018, and combines the same winning team of author and illustrators. The plot of the original novel is synopsised in a short prologue, so a reader approaching the sequel won’t feel lost, though they will surely want to seek out the first volume.
Anderson’s coherent and entrancing world-building is rooted in Slavik folklore, and features the eponymous house with chicken legs, a flying mortar and pestle, and a series of gateways into different realms encompassing the living and the dead. The protagonist Marinka is grieving for her adoptive grandmother Baba Yaga, who disappeared through the Gate to the Stars in the preceding volume. However, Marinka has no time to ruminate – instead she is forced to follow her runaway house, accompanied by her friend Benjamin and her pet jackdaw, trying to figure out what has gone wrong. On her adventures, she wrestles with the notions of grief and regret, of responsibility and change, and of the importance of friendship, family, and love. Natural imagery is used to powerful effect: ‘if grief is like a toad in your belly, then guilt and regret are a swarm of bees in your chest’. The depiction of how to accompany someone on their death journey – ‘the perfect way to begin a journey to the stars’ – is wise and deeply affecting.
A book to return to.
