Six Chickens Please

by Elizabeth Coleman

This book continues the story of the author's life, following THE TANGLED GARDEN and HOT WATER, PLEASE. In 1932, Elizabeth, widowed with three children, married widower Fred Coleman, who had one daughter. Together they rent a small house, and to help feed the family, Elizabeth bought six chickens. Later they are able to move to a bigger house, where Elizabeth gives birth to two more children - and buys more chickens! A super story of a family living on very little, but love and hard work.

184 pages, Hardcover

First published January 6, 2001

About the author

Elizabeth Coleman wrote her first novel when she was seven – that’s if you can call four pages in an old exercise book a novel.

She was a huge Enid Blyton fan and didn’t let the fact that she’d never been out of Australia deter her from writing a story about an English boarding school, full of girls having midnight feasts in the dorm and saying stuff like: ‘I say, we’re off to Cornwall for the hols!’

When her mum and dad gently suggested that she try writing about an Australian school, Elizabeth was appalled. Who cares about an Australian school? Not a midnight feast or a scary but benign matron in sight.

Elizabeth is the author of four published plays, including the smash hits Secret Bridesmaids' Business and It's My Party (And I'll Die If I Want To). Her theatre writing has also appeared in several anthologies. As a screenwriter Elizabeth adapted Secret Bridesmaids' Business into an award-winning ABC telemovie and has written for many of Australia's most popular dramas, including Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and Bed of Roses, which she co-created with Jutta Goetze. Losing the Plot is her first novel.

Reviews

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was ok, but not great. The author writes as if she were talking aloud. The poor grammar and run on sentences got to me after awhile. Her life was incredibly hard and her husband sounds like a jerk. On the whole this book was kind of depressing.