The Little Red Hen by Public Domain, Illustrated by Barry Downard

Book Genre: Folklore

Publishing Info: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing (29 pages)

Awards or Honors: South Africa - 6 Silver Quill awards for photographic craft, 1 Loerie award for photographic craft, the South African section of the 2001 Hasselblad International Competition, the "John Dodds Challenge" for digital manipulation, awarded 4 pages in prestigious Hirt & Carter calendar competition,
United States- gold and a silver "RX Club Award"

Summary: The Little Red Hen is a delightful story of a hard working hen and her lazy friends duck, cat and pig. The story begins with Little Red hen finding some grains of wheat. She wants to plant the wheat and asks her friends for help. All of her friends refuse to help by saying "Not I". So Little Red Hen plants it herself. After the wheat had grown she asks for help cutting the wheat, but she gets the same "Not I" from her friends. Once again she decides to do it herself. Throughout the rest of the story Little Red Hen takes the wheat for grinding, makes dough, and bakes the dough into bread. Each time cat, pig, and duck respond with the "Not I" when she asks for help. Finally when the bread is smelling delicious and ready to be eaten, she asks once more for help to eat the bread. Of course this time all three agree to help eat the bread. Little Red Hen reminds them of how they didn't help make it and she eats the bread all by herself.

Personal Rating & Reason: ****Great! This is a traditional folklore passed down for generations that teaches children a great moral about selfishness. Barry Downard took the folklore and transformed it into a story that captures the young readers of today. His manipulated photographs really catch your eye and are very entertaining. There is even on that has a pig dressed in glasses as "Hairy Trotter".

Reading Level: K-2 (2.9 AR)

Interest Level: ages 4-8 years

Possible Uses: This story could be used across the curriculum in writing, science, and character education.
Writing: A Flow Map could be made in class about Little Red Hen's requests for help. The students could then write their own sentences or story from the Flow Map. They could also illustrate their stories. Another activity could be to make into a play and let the students act out the story.
Science: This story could be used to discuss animals and how they interact with each other and their surroundings. The class could create a recipe for bread and make the bread in class. Another activity would be to have the class work together to make their own butter (heavy cream, salt, yellow food coloring, and lots of shaking by the students) to go on the class-made bread. I put in yellow food coloring because I have found that most children won't eat the butter if it is not yellow like in the package from the store - go figure.
Character Education: An excellent way to introduce responsibility to children in a way that they can understand.

Potential Problems or Difficulties: None at this time.