PreS-Gr 3-The industrious hen gets the best of her three lazy friends in this retelling of the familiar tale.

"This imaginative rendition will surely help sustain the popularity of this old favorite." School Library Journal, Starred

Recent versions of the Little Red Hen are available but for a faithful retelling with the focus on the hen, Galdone has a good one. Each animal resident of the cozy house refuses to help the Little Red Hen with her tasks of planting, cutting the wheat and baking the cake. However everyone wants to help eat the cake after it comes out of the oven. The Little Red Hen refuses any help with that but does gain some eager helpers for her future tasks. In this classic story about helping with tasks, Galdone includes some cheerful details for young readers: pictures of the residents in the cozy house, showing the objects in their dreams and whimsical details with the letters in the oft-repeated phrase, "Not I." This particular edition has a nice size text font for beginning readers and the book is a nice size for small hands. If one wants to read this aloud, the book's size also works very well to hold up and show the wonderful pen and ink illustrations. This handsome reissue can help preschool and early elementary readers learn about the importance of everyone contributing to a project equally, and it teaches the lesson with humor and cleverness. Reviewer: Elizabeth Fronk