Out of the Egg (review)

When the Red Hen finds a green seed, she's on her own: the Fat Cat, the Dirty Rat, and the Greedy Pig all choose their own pastimes over helping her tend the seed as it turns into a tree. The tree provides shelter when Red Hen lays an egg, which produces, logically enough, a little red chick; the tree also draws a little cat, rat, and pig (obviously the offspring of the hen's heedless roommates) to play in its shade. Though Red Hen initially responds to their requests with prim selfishness, her chick reproves her ("Mum, that's MEAN!"), and she relents for a multi-species sub-arboreal playtime. The original "Little Red Hen" is a somewhat strange story when closely examined, but Matthews' retelling is even preachier, with a dollop of heavy sentiment at the end and some logistical issues (either that's one fast growing tree or one old chicken). Nevertheless, it's clever in adding leverage to the hen's frustration by making her housemates with the wastrel mammals (who lounge about watching big-screen TV with their feet up on the coffee table), and the shift in moral from turnabout to inclusion makes it more palatable to contemporary tastes. In Matthews' illustrations, handmade woodblock prints layer red and green on black; the elegance of the artistic style, with its delicate patterning and austere outlines, provides amusing contrast in the depictions of the going-to-pot mammals and attractive scenes of the industrious hen. Young listeners may enjoy comparing this to the original and discussing the difference, or they may just appreciate a story about somebody who decided that lightening up and sharing unilaterally made for a better life.