Product Description

Galdone's dynamic, amusing pictures add much humor to the familiar tale of the industrious hen and lazy cat, dog, and mouse.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #136730 in Books
• Brand: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
• Published on: 1985-03-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780899193496
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"This imaginative rendition will surely help sustain the popularity of this old favorite." -- Review

Review

About the Author

Customer Reviews

A classic book that gets everything just right
The Little Red Hen finds some grains of wheat on the ground, and asks for help in planting them. But her shiftless roommates, the dog, the cat, and the mouse, all refuse to help plant the wheat, water it, reap it, grind it, or bake a cake from the wheat. When the cake is ready to be eaten, they all want to help, but the hen eats the cake by herself. In the end, the lazy trio has learned to help with the household chores.

This is a nice simple story with a good rhythm and refrain (Not I! said the dog; Not I! said the cat; Not I! said the mouse) that should be very reassuring to a young child. The pictures in my 1974 edition (also by Galdone, I guess, since no illustrator is credited) are very nice, with lots of details to think about and enjoy. The moral is a good one for young children to learn as well.

This book has endured through the years because it has all of the elements that make a great kid's book; it is entertaining and comforting, teaches children where food comes from, and contains a lesson about the value of a day's work.

I highly recommend it.

A Classic "Teaching" Tale Well Illustrated
Paul Galdone is on my entering kindergartener's Summer Reading List and I can certainly understand why. He has a marvelous way of drawing expressions and displaying, with detail, a story in a manner that makes it real and concrete for little children.

Certainly, my children (3 and 5; boy and girl respectively) like this version of the Little Red Hen. And I found it really useful as a learning tool too.

While other versions just have the repetitive print "Not I" standing on it's own, the Galdone version has a picture of each animal next to the words. These pictures allow even a toddler to participate in `reading' the story aloud.

A Great Addition to the home library.


Some lesson activities for the "Little Red Hen' suggested by various websites include:

--Talking with older children about whether the Hen's treatment of her housemates was justified. Could Hen have handled the situation in another way?

--Tying the book into a lesson about plant growth, and/or cake making.

--Talking about Teamwork and then how families work as a team.

-- Reading different versions and discussing the merits of one versus the other.

-- For younger children, having them recite and fill in the blanks as you read.

As always with Galdone, a wonderful, faithful retelling
You can never go far wrong with fairy tales and Paul Galdone! We have almost all his books, and they are the versions I almost always have read my sons. As in this version, he tells the story clearly, with interesting and detailed but not cluttered pictures. There is something about this particular story my sons have always loved. Perhaps it's because it's a pretty clear-cut ending---the ones who would not help don't get to share the treat, instead of the ending of many more modern tales where all learn their lesson and get included at the end! Kids often like things to be "fair but firm"! They also like the details of the cooking included here. Have a look at all of Galdone's books if you are interested in building up a fairy tale collection.