Henrietta and the Golden Eggs - Softcover

Johansen, Hanna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567922880 ISBN 13: 9781567922882

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2004

Synopsis

Henrietta has big dreams for a little chicken: learning to sing, to swim, to fly, and, most important of all, to lay golden eggs. Even when her three thousand, three hundred thirty-three fellow inmates in the old henhouse laugh at her ambitions, Henrietta holds fast, practicing day and night. And while she's honing her talents, she's also getting ready to move on to the bigger, brighter world she can see through the tiny hole in the henhouse wall.

Our heroine is no fool; she knows her limitations, but doesn't let them destroy her ambitions, any more than she lets the henhouse walls keep her a prisoner. And she's not above causing a little havoc along the way once the other three thousand, three hundred thirty-three chickens find her escape route, chaos reigns in the barnyard, by the pond, and among the wheat fields.

Whether Henrietta achieves her dreams is debatable, but through her persistence and her resolute belief in herself, she does manage to change the lives of everyone in the henhouse for the better.

This delightful fable is the first book by Hanna Johansen to be published in English. The spirited pen-and-ink illustrations by Käthi Bhend, printed in two colors, capture the henhouse denizens and their frenetic escapades down to the last feather.

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

From Booklist:

Gr. 1-3. Henrietta lives in a crowded chicken house where "the air stank of chicken droppings and fortified chicken feed." Despite the hopelessness and the crowded conditions, she has a dream--to one day lay a golden egg. But before that, she wants to sing and swim, and as impossible as those dreams seem, Henrietta is clever enough to make them happen. At the same time, she allows her friends to run free, until the farm manager sees that roaming chickens are happy chickens who lay better eggs. Johansen's message about following your dreams outside the chicken house will work best with a slightly older audience than the preschool crowd, as will Bhend's intricate pen-and-ink illustrations. The pictures are quite extraordinary: hilarious depictions of chickens set free as well as somber drawings of chickens stuffed in a modern-day chicken house that goes on as far as the eye can see. This effective tale, translated from the German, has layers of subtext in both story and art. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1567922880
• ISBN 13: 9781567922882
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64
• Illustrator: Bhend Kathi