Mrs. Hen's Big Surprise

by Christel Desmoinaux

Mrs. Hen has found a very strange-looking egg in her garden: It's yellow with blue polka dots and it's three times her size! But an egg is an egg, so Mrs. Hen sits on it. She's sure it will hatch into... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689834039
• ISBN13: 9780689834035
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 10.2" x 7.0"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

cute story ... great illustrations

This book has a great message. All Mrs. Hens friends think she is crazy, but she falls in love with this egg and when it hatches looking different then what everyone expected... it doesn't matter. Mrs. Hen loves the baby. You can apply it to many different real life experiences. Very Cute! My daughter's favorite book.

Adorable Adoption Tale For The Pre-schooler!

Wonderful way to help explain international and cross-cultural adoption to the toddler and pre-schooler. As an adoptive single Mom-to-Be awaiting international adoption, I also like that it portrays a single parent. My only complaint is that in the 21st Century, Mother Hen should have been called Ms. Hen instead of Mrs. Hen. (I'll take the liberty to change the name when I read it to my future daughter)

especially good for children who don't look like Mom & Dad

I'm adopting internationally and was looking for picture books for a young child that would help me begin addressing the issue with a little one. This is a wonderful, charming, heartwarming book -the point being that Mrs. Hen wants a chick to love, and is still thrilled when her "chick" is a little creature that doesn't happen to look like her - she still adores him. The story is short, the illustrations are adorable, and it's not a "heavy", intense book at all - just a feel-good one perfect to read to small children.

Charming new version of the Ugly Duckling story

Mrs. Hen yearns for a baby chick to love. To her delight, one day she discovers an egg in her garden and realizes now she can have a chick of her very own. She takes the egg home and sits on it as any good hen would and dreams of her little chick-to-be. Mrs. Hen's friends think she's crazy -- the egg is enormous and polka-dotted and they don't think it will ever hatch. For a long time, it doesn't. After a year or so of sitting on the egg, Mrs. Hen gets frustrated and jostles it, rolls it around, and hits it with a broom in an effort to get it to hatch, but with no luck. She decides to roll it back down the hill, where it cracks at the bottom and out comes her chick -- which turns out to be a dinosaur. She doesn't care that it looks funny for a chick -- she loves it anyway. The illustrations of Mrs. Hen, particularly of her excitement on finding the egg, are charming and full of life.