Henriette Barkow

From the point that the Little Red Hen finds the grains of wheat and asks the other animals for help planting it and they decline, you know exactly where this story is going. New animal added to the vocab (Ganz is a goose.) I liked the glossary at the back with the key words in German & English.

This little old easy-reader is a delightful edition. The illustrations are of a realistic farmyard and village, with human farmers doing their work in the background. Because the animals don't live in a house, the hen enlists the help of a miller and a baker, communicating simply by context. Otherwise, there's no change in the barebones version of the classic story, not even any chicks.

There's no need for any of you to seek this out, but I'm glad that I did.

Based on Vietnamese bilingual edition. A boy and girl are each products of interracial marriages. When they are with their dads, everyone else assumes the men are the fathers. But when they are out with their mothers, people assume the women are babysitters or that they adopted the kids. This frustrates the kids. They come up with a solution of making big paper badges to wear with pictures of their moms and the words "That's my mum."

Despite remembering little about this tale now, I think rating it five stars equates to how much I enjoyed this story when I read it numerous times as a child.

I do recall the basic plot for this, however, and in fact remember more about this title than most books read during my pre-teens. Thus, Red Hen every so often asks three other animals if they will help her with such and such a task, to which she always receives the following replies:

"Not I," said the pig.

"Not I," said the cat.

"Not I," show more said the rat.

I remember the above because even to this day I sometimes quote these responses to myself (in a non-crazy way) when I don't want to do something. Funny how certain unusual aspects of one's childhood last deep into adulthood, perhaps forever.

Possible spoiler coming up, so don't read on if you genuinely want to read this without any clue to the ending.

Anyway, the three animals' answers all change to "I will" at the end when Red Hen asks who'll help her eat her wheat (or something containing wheat), but quite rightfully she tells the others to sod off, though of course she puts it more eloquently than me.

Reckon 1984 would be the last time I read it, but it's hard to be accurate all these years on.

Recommended to anyone aged in single figures or for grown-ups feeling nostalgic. show less