The little red hen.

The little red hen

Author and Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

Dial 2006

32 pages

Fantasy Children’s book

               

This is a new take on the old story The little red hen.  In this story the hen finds some seeds and asks her buddies the short brown dog, the thin grey cat, the tall black goat, and the round pink pig for advice. They tell her that it is wheat seeds and will make wheat for bread. The hen then goes through planting and caring for the wheat as well as her young babies. None of hen’s friends will help her along the way. Her friends are lazy and just want to sit around. However when it comes time for the bread to be baked and eaten who do you think shows up to help the little red hen? If you want to find out you need to read this new spin on an old tail in The little red hen.

                The illustrations in this story were a little old fashioned. I know that this is a revamp of an older story so they did not want to stray too far away from the original I feel though the illustrations could have been a little better. The animals were depicted in a correct way and looked like normal animals except that they could talk. The text in the book was mostly on the top of the page, however the text color changed depending on what character was talking. That was a nice touch I thought it gave the readers a chance to know who was speaking in two different ways. The illustrations in this story were created by pencil, colored pencil and watercolors. Jerry Pinkney has won numerous awards for his illustrations and children’s books.

                Classroom connections for this book could be about characteristics, bread making, and connecting to the characters. Students can get in groups and talk about how the hen’s friends and hen’s attitude and characteristics. The students can talk about what they would do if they were hen and their friends acted that way and vice versa. You can teach a science lesson on how to make bread and the steps that are involved in it. The teacher also if available can make homemade bread in the class with the students. This will also allow them to really connect to the work that is involved in making bread so they know how Hen was feeling. Lastly the students can connect to hen. They can write about how they would feel if they were hen, and if they would have also not let her friends eat the bread when they didn’t help the process. Or the students can write about why they think that the other animals did not want to help hen. Not only is there study related activities that can go with this story there also are morals that can be addressed.