Saturday, February 16, 2008

The Little Red Hen



Pinkney, Jerry. 2006. The Little Red Hen. The Penguin Group. New York, NY. ISBN 0803729359

This version of the beloved tale of The Little Red Hen is more descriptive than most versions. Pinkney has colored text for each character in the story that reflects the color of the animal. Each time the hen asks for help she complements an animal by telling them what they do well and how they could help. An example of this is when she is talking to the rat and the hen says, “Surely you will…You can use your tail to chop it easily.” Each time the hen’s requests are rejected until the bread is made. Then characters want to help eat the bread and the hen rejects them. I love the use of color in this book. Pinkney doesn’t just use one color for each animal instead he uses varying shade of the same color. The hen is all different shades of read, the goat is all shades of black, and the other animals are colored likewise. This use of color adds depth to the pictures and makes the animals look realistic.

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