Beth Wilson (1)

With this book the edition matters. It is a Russian folktale there are many versions. This one is mine.:)It was not on the list and it is slightly different than the rest. As I said in the description, you can imagine what happens when the bread is done and the hen asks who will help to eat it. You got it. All the barn yard animals who are too lazy to help and expect a free hand out say, “I will!” Good luck with that. The little red hen and her chicks ate the bread. Lesson learned.

I’ve show more been an avid reader since I was first read The Little Red Hen when I was four. My version, which I still have, is by the Whitman Publishing Company (1953) illustrated by Beth Wilson. I’ll just say I started reading in the 1960s and leave it at that.

The Little Red Hen was always my choice when picking a book to have read to me. I have no idea why this book so mesmerized me, but it did and after a while I had it memorized. I annoyed everyone in my family with my constant desire to repeat it to them. Then it clicked. I realized the very same words I repeated so often matched the page and were in other books too. How cool is that. Why I could learn to read anything! It was this little story that set of the light bulb that letters strung together made words and those words told a story. And with a story I could go anywhere my imagination would take me.

It is one of my all time top five favorite books I listed here. http://historysleuth.org/2013/03/childhood-books-shape-your-life/ show less

Illustrations 4