The Little Red Hen: A Tale about Cooperation

Abstract

I include this book in the collection not because I think The Little Red Hen should be viewed as a fable but because this volume is part of a series that is labeled Famous Fables. This twenty-page children's picture book extends onto its back endpaper with tips for parents, including strategies, discussion questions, and activities that grow out of the story. The Little Red Hen is a great traditional story. Yes, it is about cooperation. It is perhaps even more about work and its consequences. The hen finds some grains of wheat. At each stage, from planting to baking, she asks for help from her three friends: the cat, the dog, and the pig. Not I is the standard answer from each of these lazy friends, and her standard response is Then I will do it myself. When it comes to eating the bread that results from the process, she allows only those to eat who helped along the way -- and concludes with her line now applied to eating the bread: Then I will do it myself. The four characters are clothed in human garb throughout.