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Henrietta and the Golden Eggs - SAVE 50%!

Henrietta and the Golden Eggs - SAVE 50%!

by Hanna Johansen
Illustrated by Käthi Bhend
Translated by John S. Barrett

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Format

Product Details

Godine

Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-56792-288-2
Pages: 64
Size: 5.6" x 7"
Published: October 2004
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Henrietta has big dreams for a little chicken: learning to sing, to swim, to fly, and, most important of all, to lay golden eggs. Even when her three thousand, three hundred thirty-three fellow inmates in the old hen house laugh at her ambitions, Henrietta holds fast, practicing day and night. And while she's honing her talents, she's also getting ready to move on to the bigger, brighter world she can see through the tiny hole in the hen house wall.

Our heroine is no fool; she knows her limitations, but doesn't let them destroy her ambitions, any more than she lets the hen house walls keep her a prisoner. And she's not above causing a little havoc along the way — once the other three thousand, three hundred thirty-three chickens find her escape route, chaos reigns in the barnyard, by the pond, and among the wheat fields.

Whether Henrietta achieves her dreams is debatable, but through her persistence and her resolute belief in herself, she does manage to change the lives of everyone in the hen house for the better. 

This delightful fable is the first book by Hanna Johansen to be published in English. The spirited pen-and-ink illustrations by Käthi Bhend, printed in two colors, capture the hen house denizens and their frenetic escapades down to the last feather.

Any book that begins with the unlovely depiction of life on a factory farm, such as this one which opens, 'once upon a time, there were three thousand three hundred and thirty-three chickens who lived in a great big chicken house . . . ' has my rapt attention from the start. In Henrietta and the Golden Eggs, the life of an egg-laying chicken on a factory farm is depicted as significantly unpleasant, including stinky air, feather loss and overcrowded conditions. However, one young chicken has her sights set on a different kind of life. Little Henrietta announces that she is going to learn to sing and lay golden eggs. . . . I commend this book for refusing to flinch from some of the unpleasant welfare and economic realities of factory farming. Henrietta herself is a spunky, likeable young bird. The pen and ink line drawings by illustrator Kathi Bhend are divine and she brings the words to life in a very appealing way. —Jennifer Gannett, Vegbooks
Hanna Johansen
Hanna Johansen, born Hanna Margarete Meyer (17 June 1939 in Bremen), is a Swiss writer. She studied classical philology, education and German studies at the Universities of Marburg and Göttingen. From 1967 to 1969 she lived in Ithaca, New York, and in 1972 she moved with her then husband Adolf Muschg to Kilchberg, Zurich, where she still lives today. Johansen began her literary career as a translator of American avant garde authors, and soon moved on to original work, particularly, stories for children. She published her first novel in 1978. She is a member of PEN Switzerland and of the Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt.
Author: Käthi Bhend
Käthi Bhend was born in Olten, Switzerland in 1942. After graduating with a degree in graphic design, she worked for Parisian advertisement agencies while harboring a desire to illustrate children's books. She got her chance when she won a competition held by the publisher Zürcher Lehrmittelverlag, who then commissioned her to illustrate their books. Bhend's illustrations have won several awards, including the 2011 Troisdorf Picture Book Prize.

John S. Barrett worked for many years as a cardiologist before turning to translation with Greta Weil's The Bride Price, which was named an Outstanding Translation of the Year by the American Literary Translators Association. He lives in New Hampshire.