Purty birdies! ( )

Absolutely gorgeous, and sufficiently educational for laymen like me. My only question was whether the crazy configurations the birds were bred to could be painful to them, but the birds are, accd. to Green-Armytage, healthy and amiable. Thanks for the rec. Petra X! ( )

I was in Kew Gardens, in London, with my son and there were quite a few totally-unafraid golden pheasants doing their courting around our feet. I was so impressed by the primary-coloured beauty of them I got the book Extraordinary Pheasants. That was such a beautiful book covering the whole range of pheasants including peacocks that I got this book, Extraordinary Chickens.

Totally different book. Its just as well photographed but its almost a humorous book, the chickens are so incredibly silly-looking. Half of them looked like twittering ladies trying to impress with their hats at a garden party. But there were revelations too - a beautiful pure white-feathered chicken turns out to have coal black skin. I'd recommend this book as a gift to any one who keeps chickens, likes silly hats or instead of a fattening box of chocolates, to cheer oneself up. ( )

I grew up in a rural area where chickens were commonplace, and a major commodity. Commercial chickens always seemed big, dumb and doomed to me. But the farmer's chickens, the varietals, were fascinating. I was thrilled when my daughter's kindergarten teacher incubated eggs in the classroom and introduced us to this amazing book. Children and adults enjoyed this page turner filled with more chickens than you can imagine. Who knew chickens were so magnificent and photogenic? This book is a must for any one interested in chickens, species variation or animal photography. ( )

Your average city slicker (like me) has no idea that there are so many different types of really really WEIRD Muppet and buzzard and leper looking chickens.

This is a brilliant book of photographs that approaches a subject that most people prefer to ignore. The chicken is shown to be a beautiful, sometimes funny, elegant creature. Green-Armytage treats the chicken with great respect, using a portrait style and interspersing the book with information and chicken breed comparisons.

This book is a must for fans of photography, portraiture, chickens, birds, or any design art that uses photo reference for materials and lines. Many of the portraits could easily be translated in line and form to clothing design, industrial design, or graphic design.