The Little Red Hen

Title:   The Little Red Hen                                                    

Author: Margo Zemach

Illustrator: Margot Zemach

Genre: Picture Book

Subgenre: Traditional Literature

Theme: a value of a days work

Primary Characters: The Little Red Hen

Secondary: Pig, Goose, and Cat

Date of Publication: 1983

Publishing Company: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary of the book: This is a book about the Little Red Hen who finds some grains of wheat and wants her friends to help, plant, harvest, and thresh the wheat.  Little Red Hen’s friends are too busy to help Little Red Hen, until she finally does it all herself and bakes bread with the flour that she got from the wheat, and she ask who wants to eat the bread.  All the friends want to eat the bread, but Little Red Hen says No Way! She and her chicks sit down to eat the lovely bread that the Little Red Hen prepared and baked.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: The Little Red Hen is a simple story with good rhythm and refrain. This is a great children’s book to teach a lesson on where food comes from and the value of a good days work.