Henrietta and the Golden Eggs — Hanna Johansen

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 henhouse 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 henhouse wall.

Our heroine is no fool; she knows her limitations, but doesn't let them destroy her ambitions, any more than she lets the henhouse 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 henhouse 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 henhouse denizens and their frenetic escapades down to the last feather.