The Little Red Hen

Bibliography
Pinkney, Jerry. 2006. The Little Red Hen. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers. ISBN: 9780803729353.

Plot Summary
The little red hen finds some wheat seeds and asks for her friends - the dog, goat, pig, and rat – to help her plant the seeds, thresh the wheat, take the grains to the miller, and bake the bread. But her friends are lazy and none of them want to help her. Do you think after all her hard work the little red hen should share the bread with her lazy friends?

Critical Analysis
The Little Red Hen is a very simple story with a very simple message. The story very implicitly teaches the value of helping each other and also the value of working hard. The little red hen is always busy and makes the bread from scratch all by herself. Her friends did not help her make the bread but wanted to eat the bread when it was baked. The little red hen gently refuses her friends as she was the only one who worked hard to make the bread. The outcome of little red hen’s hard work is clearly stated in the words “joy of joys” at the end.

The story is easy to understand as it has been written just as it would have been told. The phrase “Not I” has been repeated frequently allowing the children to chant the phrase as they are read aloud. The soft, yet detailed watercolor illustrations are a delight to watch. The words dog, rat, pig, and red hen are printed in the colors that describe the color of the animal. This will help children in word recognition and identification of the animals as they read the story.