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Two-Headed Chicken
Two-Headed Chicken: Beak to the Future
The two-headed chicken is back, with twice the adventure, twice the jokes, and a lot more heads (wait, did they just accidentally turn into a double-headed space snake?).
Having lost the Astrocap™ somewhere in the multiverse, our intrepid hero dons the Timecap™ to scour the timestream, which looks a lot like broccoli, in search of it. But danger and drama await with every time-hopping POOZB! of the Timecap™, including hungry dinosaurs, fierce werewolves, poet Emily Dickinson, a fish with a mustache who wants to talk about feelings, and even the return of the chicken’s archenemy, Kernel Antlers, the shape-shifting moose! With lively art and quirky nods to history and literature, readers will be swept along for oodles of zany escapades—and brought into the book itself through games, puzzles, drawing activities, and even as a vital character. Tom Angleberger’s absurdist humor shines on every page of this nonstop ride.
Having lost the Astrocap™ somewhere in the multiverse, our intrepid hero dons the Timecap™ to scour the timestream, which looks a lot like broccoli, in search of it. But danger and drama await with every time-hopping POOZB! of the Timecap™, including hungry dinosaurs, fierce werewolves, poet Emily Dickinson, a fish with a mustache who wants to talk about feelings, and even the return of the chicken’s archenemy, Kernel Antlers, the shape-shifting moose! With lively art and quirky nods to history and literature, readers will be swept along for oodles of zany escapades—and brought into the book itself through games, puzzles, drawing activities, and even as a vital character. Tom Angleberger’s absurdist humor shines on every page of this nonstop ride.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published October 7, 2025
8 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Tom Angleberger
81 books794 followersTom Angleberger artist-turned-writer. He is a columnist for the Roanoke Times in Roanoke, Virginia, and began work on his first book while in middle school. Tom is married to author-illustrator Cece Bell. He lives in Christianburg, Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 21, 2025
Just as fun, silly, and chaotic as the first book!
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January 18, 2025Even more HILARIOUS! I also read this book 3 times! SO funny!
September 14, 2023
This book is actually funnier than the first one! (I don't think that happens too often.) I actually loved it and am giving it 5 stars. Seriously there were big grins and laughs out of me at least every 5 pages if not more often. It's hilarious. I highly recommend it.
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June 8, 2025Hey there! This is Charlie P! I’m ten years old and I read books to raise money for charity. I want to help moms pick out books that their kids will like! Here is another review by me!
The two headed a humorous book filled with chickens, mousses and frying pans. You will be laughing till the end. I think you’ll really enjoy. This is probably mainly for 7 to 9 year-old.
The two headed a humorous book filled with chickens, mousses and frying pans. You will be laughing till the end. I think you’ll really enjoy. This is probably mainly for 7 to 9 year-old.
August 30, 2025
Beak to the Future continues in the style of the first Two-Headed Chicken book--very silly/chaotic/fast-paced/anything-goes. However, this one includes instructions for playing "mini-mini-golf" (similar to "pencil podracers" from Angleberger's Origami Yoda series) and incorporates an anti-book-banning message, so I found it more engaging than the first one in the series.
November 10, 2024
Another silly romp with Two-Headed Chicken as they have their astrocap to continue their time traveling adventures with knock-knock and dad jokes and their nemesis Kernel Antlers makes an appearance. Again for fans of Captain Underpants and Dog Man.
February 15, 2025
Much better than the first one but the puzzles and the random Jimmy quizzes were annoying. But the Avengers amoebas were hilarious.
February 16, 2025
Tween enjoyed reading.
October 11, 2025
A lot of fun! Makes way more sense if you've read the first book, although that's not saying much. Great for nonsense lovers.
April 14, 2024
Painful!
October 15, 2023
Angleberger, Tom. Beak to the Future (Two-Headed Chicken #2)
September 12, 2023 by Walker Books US
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
The Two-Headed Chicken is back, and ready to travel in time. Using the AstroCap, they travel back into the Timestream (also referred to as "Tammy") to visit prehistory. They have been warned about the Butterfly Effect, but tell a knock knock joke when they travel back in time, therefore changing the world. They are now a duckter cuckoo, and spend a great deal of time trying to change the world and get back to the way they were. The AstroCap's 45 second charging time makes for some narrow escapes as they encounter some of their old nemeses, including Kernel Antler (who looks like a crocodile). They also get stuck in a time loop (or do they?), meet Emily Dickinson and Sherlock Holmes, enter a role playing game called The Magical Gathering of Dragons in Dungeons, and even fight book banners! Eventually, they are restored to their original incarnations, and use a book of poetry to inspire a young artist named Tom Anklebarker, or something like that, to create a comic book with a two-headed chicken in it.
Like the first book in the series, this is a frenetic goof fest of crazy adventures and silly conflicts, illustrated in a hyperactive style. There are close up photographs of brocolli to illustrate the time stream, Victorian clip art and sepia toned pages with information about Bangerter's Marvelous Time Cap, and a lot of brightly colored comic style illustrations that are heavy on bright blue, purple, red and yellow.
I especially appreciated the fact that on one of the activity pages, it is mentioned that if the reader has a library book, there are printable pages at twoheadedchicken.com, but the site didn't seem to have activity pages.
Not surprisingly, Angleberger gives a shout out to Daniel Pinkwater's work like the 1982 The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, and this certainly embraces that stream of conscious style, replete with random characters, sight gags, and self referential jokes. This graphic novel would definitely be a good way to warm up younger readers for eventually picking up Pinkwater's 2007 The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Neddie & Friends, #1).
Readers who love Dav Pilkey's work or Green's Investigators will appreciate the frenzied art and nonstop jokes as the Two-Headed Chicken travels through the chronoverse getting into trouble. Things work out in the end, but who knows when further opportunities to POOOOOZB might occur!
I thought it was interesting that while Bradbury's 1952 story "A Soung of Thunder" is one of the first instance of the "Butterfly Effect", but that the idea also appears in Norton Juster's 1962 The Phantom Tollbooth, when The Princess of Pure Reason says "whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world."
September 12, 2023 by Walker Books US
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
The Two-Headed Chicken is back, and ready to travel in time. Using the AstroCap, they travel back into the Timestream (also referred to as "Tammy") to visit prehistory. They have been warned about the Butterfly Effect, but tell a knock knock joke when they travel back in time, therefore changing the world. They are now a duckter cuckoo, and spend a great deal of time trying to change the world and get back to the way they were. The AstroCap's 45 second charging time makes for some narrow escapes as they encounter some of their old nemeses, including Kernel Antler (who looks like a crocodile). They also get stuck in a time loop (or do they?), meet Emily Dickinson and Sherlock Holmes, enter a role playing game called The Magical Gathering of Dragons in Dungeons, and even fight book banners! Eventually, they are restored to their original incarnations, and use a book of poetry to inspire a young artist named Tom Anklebarker, or something like that, to create a comic book with a two-headed chicken in it.
Like the first book in the series, this is a frenetic goof fest of crazy adventures and silly conflicts, illustrated in a hyperactive style. There are close up photographs of brocolli to illustrate the time stream, Victorian clip art and sepia toned pages with information about Bangerter's Marvelous Time Cap, and a lot of brightly colored comic style illustrations that are heavy on bright blue, purple, red and yellow.
I especially appreciated the fact that on one of the activity pages, it is mentioned that if the reader has a library book, there are printable pages at twoheadedchicken.com, but the site didn't seem to have activity pages.
Not surprisingly, Angleberger gives a shout out to Daniel Pinkwater's work like the 1982 The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, and this certainly embraces that stream of conscious style, replete with random characters, sight gags, and self referential jokes. This graphic novel would definitely be a good way to warm up younger readers for eventually picking up Pinkwater's 2007 The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Neddie & Friends, #1).
Readers who love Dav Pilkey's work or Green's Investigators will appreciate the frenzied art and nonstop jokes as the Two-Headed Chicken travels through the chronoverse getting into trouble. Things work out in the end, but who knows when further opportunities to POOOOOZB might occur!
I thought it was interesting that while Bradbury's 1952 story "A Soung of Thunder" is one of the first instance of the "Butterfly Effect", but that the idea also appears in Norton Juster's 1962 The Phantom Tollbooth, when The Princess of Pure Reason says "whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world."
November 22, 2023
What worked:
The book will appeal to readers who love the absurd. The two-headed chicken has an Astrocap that allows it/them to travel back and forth through time. That’s exactly what happens throughout the whole book. Illustrations of the timestream happen to look like a giant broccoli but that’s just a coincidence. The impossible is possible in the timestream as the chicken visits times in history that might/or might not have happened. It encounters some famous personalities like George Washington but also shrinks to microscopic size during prehistoric times. There’s even a scene where it visits the Garden of Eden. Dinosaurs and moose (the green kind) are recurring characters as they appear in various scenes.
The story includes random pages that share different topics that may or may not be related to the plot. One section shares the tale of Friedrich Bangerter, who is the first time-traveler, and presents his three laws to avoid “evolutionary mayhem”. Another page assigns a US History Test and the book ends with Jimmy’s fun quiz. Many of the questions are multiple choice but they all allow readers to consider their own silly answers.
This graphic novel blends colorful illustrations with a good deal of narrative to present the strange story. The pictures immediately display changes as the two-headed chicken transforms into a two-headed television, dinosaur, penguin, and alligator, to name a few. These transformations are good indicators that history is messed up. “Humorous” knock-knock jokes are wielded like weapons by the chicken and they’re sure to make readers groan. The author pokes fun at himself and readers in the dialogue to add more levity to the story. Readers should be prepared to expect the unexpected as the author lets his imagination go free.
What didn’t work as well:
The overall book doesn’t have a compelling plot. About every five pages, the chicken disrupts a moment in history and then must travel to a different time to try to set things right. On the other hand, the brief episodes may appeal to young readers since it won’t take long to finish the chapters and the whole book.
The final verdict:
This style of writing can be expected from the author of the Origami Yoda stories so this book will appeal to lovers of his zany scenarios. I can easily recommend the book to those with a high tolerance for the absurd.
The book will appeal to readers who love the absurd. The two-headed chicken has an Astrocap that allows it/them to travel back and forth through time. That’s exactly what happens throughout the whole book. Illustrations of the timestream happen to look like a giant broccoli but that’s just a coincidence. The impossible is possible in the timestream as the chicken visits times in history that might/or might not have happened. It encounters some famous personalities like George Washington but also shrinks to microscopic size during prehistoric times. There’s even a scene where it visits the Garden of Eden. Dinosaurs and moose (the green kind) are recurring characters as they appear in various scenes.
The story includes random pages that share different topics that may or may not be related to the plot. One section shares the tale of Friedrich Bangerter, who is the first time-traveler, and presents his three laws to avoid “evolutionary mayhem”. Another page assigns a US History Test and the book ends with Jimmy’s fun quiz. Many of the questions are multiple choice but they all allow readers to consider their own silly answers.
This graphic novel blends colorful illustrations with a good deal of narrative to present the strange story. The pictures immediately display changes as the two-headed chicken transforms into a two-headed television, dinosaur, penguin, and alligator, to name a few. These transformations are good indicators that history is messed up. “Humorous” knock-knock jokes are wielded like weapons by the chicken and they’re sure to make readers groan. The author pokes fun at himself and readers in the dialogue to add more levity to the story. Readers should be prepared to expect the unexpected as the author lets his imagination go free.
What didn’t work as well:
The overall book doesn’t have a compelling plot. About every five pages, the chicken disrupts a moment in history and then must travel to a different time to try to set things right. On the other hand, the brief episodes may appeal to young readers since it won’t take long to finish the chapters and the whole book.
The final verdict:
This style of writing can be expected from the author of the Origami Yoda stories so this book will appeal to lovers of his zany scenarios. I can easily recommend the book to those with a high tolerance for the absurd.
November 8, 2023
I haven't read the first one about these silly (also energized and resilient) chickens but this is one I imagine kid readers will laugh over as pages turn and adventures arrive. And they will find changes as the time traveling unfolds. Those chickens don't always remain chickens, and while they try very hard to make outlandish knock-knock jokes, they don't often succeed. There are pages of activities (and warnings if it's a library book) and tests, yes, tests! Obviously, in this back-in-time world, it's good to pay attention. There's even a history of rules about messing up things in the past, causing ripples that should never happen in the future. I loved every fun page, crammed full of fun and funny events that shouldn't be missed!
Thanks to Walker Books, division of Candlewick Books for this copy!
Thanks to Walker Books, division of Candlewick Books for this copy!
October 13, 2023
Thank you @walkerbooksUS for this gifted copy to read and review.
👦🏻 review: I remember this author from Inspector FlyTraps series that I used to read back in 3rd grade at the library. My mom would tell me to find books but instead I always pick graphic novels for a great laugh. Even though I’ve never read the first book of this series, I didn’t have any problems identifying and understanding the story. I picked it up immediately, and the book is so silly and funny. My sister thought the illustration was cringey and silly but I disagree with her. I love how simple the graphic is so that it’s easier to tell from the images and the silly story line. As a 6th grader, I really enjoyed this entertaining graphic novel. Easy-read and funny! Hope you’ll like it too.
👦🏻 review: I remember this author from Inspector FlyTraps series that I used to read back in 3rd grade at the library. My mom would tell me to find books but instead I always pick graphic novels for a great laugh. Even though I’ve never read the first book of this series, I didn’t have any problems identifying and understanding the story. I picked it up immediately, and the book is so silly and funny. My sister thought the illustration was cringey and silly but I disagree with her. I love how simple the graphic is so that it’s easier to tell from the images and the silly story line. As a 6th grader, I really enjoyed this entertaining graphic novel. Easy-read and funny! Hope you’ll like it too.
June 10, 2023
Graphic Novel
I received an electronic ARC from Candlewick Press through Edelweiss+.
Book two picks up shortly after the first one ended. This time the two-headed chicken travels through time causes disasters for the future. Eventually, they go back to the very beginning of time and think they have resolved all the issues. One more lurks and it is up to the reader to save the universes. Angleberger's style will appeal to middle grade readers. The ridiculousness of the plot and characters will make them laugh through the whole story.
I received an electronic ARC from Candlewick Press through Edelweiss+.
Book two picks up shortly after the first one ended. This time the two-headed chicken travels through time causes disasters for the future. Eventually, they go back to the very beginning of time and think they have resolved all the issues. One more lurks and it is up to the reader to save the universes. Angleberger's style will appeal to middle grade readers. The ridiculousness of the plot and characters will make them laugh through the whole story.
August 8, 2023
Ooh where’s my book 3?
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September 4, 2023Cuter than the first one :)
September 24, 2023
I read 1 & 2 of this series back to back, I preferred this 2nd book way better, not sure why. Funny humor and colorful illustrations.
October 12, 2023
Very funny, and like the first book it has numerous pages I had to stop my coworkers and read to them.
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October 15, 2023The best crazy dumb adventure. Lower your standards for elite reading and have fun with something so silly today. 11/10
October 25, 2023
Chaotic as ever lol but not quite as funny as the first one.
November 5, 2023
Very colourful and a bit silly graphic novels. Fun read.
December 29, 2025
This one didn't hurt my head. It was still confusing though.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews