today’s children storybook summary is
A Hen for Izzy Pippik
By Aubrey Davis
Illustrated by Marie Lafrance
The takeaway: Sometimes is hard to keep doing the right thing especially when others push you in the wrong direction. But as hard at it may be and long as it may take, doing the right thing feels good and sooner or later others will follow.
Storyline
Shaina used to help the merchants on the market every day but lately the times got hard. Some shops have closed and thus there were fewer jobs. As she sat on the porch, lost in thoughts, Shaina felt a pick on her toe. When she looked down she saw a beautiful hen with green feathers, golden speckles and a red comb.
The girl figured that the hen must have come from the market nearby. So, she grabbed the bird and run to the marketplace to return it to its owner. She asked everybody, but nobody seemed to have lost a chicken. Finally, following some tracks on the road, Shaina arrived at a spot were a single empty crate stood and by it, a sign that read: Izzy Pippik chickens and eggs. She looked around, but Izzy Pippik was gone. The girl returned home with the hen. She named her Yevka. She convinced her family to keep it by telling them that Izzy Pippik would return soon and take the hen back. She was sure about it.
Days past one after another and still Izzy Pippik did not return. The hen had chicks, and the chicks grew, and they had chicks of their own. Her family tried to get rick of the birds, but Shaina kept saying that the owner will arrive soon. Then, the chicken population exploded and took to the streets of the town. Some citizen proposed to use them for dinner, but the girl told them that they cannot take what wasn’t theirs.
More time passed, and the owner still didn’t come. Shaina worried but she was firm in her believe that, someday, Mr. Pippik will arrive. The locals got used with the chicken roaming through the streets and soon they stopped paying attention. But not everybody. Word spread that in this town there were chickens everywhere. People were coming from the nearby or far away cities to see them. And because of that, the business started to pick up. The more visitors they had, the more prosperous the merchants became.
One day, a red truck came to the market. People all over stopped and watched. It was Izzy Pippik, at last. Shaina came fast followed by the green hen. She told him the whole story and handed him his hen. She said that the other chickens are also his to keep. But the crowd begged him no to take the chickens. Izzy Peppik let the hen go and drove away. He had given Yevka to the girl and the flock of chicken to the people in the town because they belonged together.
Characters
Shaina, a girl with long, braided black hair, wearing a green dress and a red bow; Yevka, a green hen; Izzy Pippik, an older man driving a red truck, people
Illustration
With her drawings, Marie Lafrance, the illustrator of this book, gives the pages a warm touch. There are two things that sets her illustration apart from others. First, her depictions looked ragged, scratched and worn out, like a drawing that had aged greatly. And second, her characters have very distinctive features, round and clear, looking sometimes like they’ve been sketched by a child. The vintage and naïve look of her illustration brings charm to a wise story.
Recommended Age: 7 to 10
Reading Time: 12 minutes
Things to Learn
Merchant: a person that sells goods in a marketplace. Usually, the goods are homemade, or produced in in house, or grown on a farm.
Marketplace: a place, usually outdoors, where merchants sell their goods.
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