Finish the fifth grade: Check!

Start summer break: Check!

Spend summer break with Tom and Gina: Wait! What?!

When eleven-year-old Ryan Ericksen learns he'll be spending three months helping his aunt and uncle on their chicken farm, he thinks his whole summer break is ruined.

No more playing video games or having super-soaker fights with his older brother. Nope. He'll be stuck on the eastern plains of Colorado with five hundred stupid, crummy chickens.

Little does he know, his life is about to change in a big way. Maybe life isn't always as bad as he expects. And maybe there are things in life worth fighting for, even when obstacles and heartache are there at every turn.

But when disaster strikes at the farm, will he have the courage to risk his neck for a cause greater than himself? Or will he chicken out when everyone needs him the most?

Chickens, Girls, and Other Life Problems is a contemporary coming-of-age middle-grade novel for both boys and girls (ages 8 to 12).