One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference (review)

In Ghana, young Kojo has a business idea, borrowing a small bit of money from his mother to purchase a hen, intending to sell her extra eggs at the market. Slowly his income grows so that he can not only pay his mother back but he can also buy more hens; eventually, he has enough money to go back to school, and he begins to think about running a chicken farm all his own when he grows up. Which is just what he does, garnering a loan with his explanation of his childhood financial empire; his chicken farm provides jobs to many, gives them their own capital for business starts, and plays a part in the national and international economy. The story is unusual in its economic focus and topical in its championship of the benefits of microfinance, gaining power from its modeling on a real Ghanaian entrepreneur, Kwabena Darko. Though the book is a little rosy about the certainty of growth and it skips a key element of fortune in the real Kojo's life (his mother married a chicken farmer), the beneficial effects of small loans and small projects are thoughtfully and carefully explained in the extensive text. Each page is summarized in a "House That Jack Built"–styled epigraph that wisely forgoes elaborate cumulation for pith and clarity ("This is the school Kojo attends with the fees he paid from the money he made selling his eggs"). Acrylic illustrations, vivid and lively with an emphasis on sunny hues and warm earthtones, balance out the large blocks of text; though compositions are sometimes unfocused, they're clever in their imaginative representations of village life (tiny diorama-esque landscape elements pack in broad overviews beneath huge striding people). End matter includes an overview of Darko's life, specific information about microfinance donations and beneficiaries, and a glossary.