The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly: A Novel

Who would have thought that a book meant for young readers would be so poetic and compelling? This is a testament of life and death and all the joys and sorrows in between, how we achieve immortality not through living forever, but by the love we pass on to our children and how our true purpose is to raise them with boundless love and then release them to fly into the world. I loved this book. Sprout is a naive and innocent creature , a egg laying hen with the singular wish to sit on an egg and hatch a chick, becoming a mother. Her wish is granted in an unusual manner when she escapes her coop and becomes the guardian of an orphaned egg that soon hatches into a young ducking. It then becomes Sprout’s challenge to not only raise a child who is different from herself, with no idea how to do so, but to protect him until he can reach adulthood from the hungry one eyed weasel who stalks the farm and the fields. I like how this particular book not only brings a unique perspective to being an adoptive mother from an animal’s point of view, but surprises the reader by not painting the predator as a mindless killing machine but rather another aspect of nature trying to survive in her own way, the only way she can , even drawing some parallels to the protagonist while still being at odds with her. It shouldn’t work, but like nature, where so little is simply black or white, it flows together to create an inspiring and gripping tale that will make you smile and cry in equal amounts. Never has the “empty nest” been so accurate a symbol, and so deeply moving.

A sweet little fable about a hen who raises a duckling. She is feisty and protective and has all those other maternal instincts natural to mothers the world over; be they animal or human.

I'm so glad I decided to read this book. A moving tale told from a hen's point of view, this is partly a social commentary, partly a coming of age story, and partly a tribute to motherhood, among other things. Poignantly but simply written with light touches of humor and lots of pulls at your heart strings. This will undoubtedly be compared to Animal Farm, but it seems to me this ends on a note of hope and lightness rather than the ominous end to the other book. This is a quick read, and a highly recommended one.

Get ready to cry. It's a little like Charlotte's Web only sadder. Get a box of Kleenex! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

exquisite read.

This book was recommended by a friend whose taste in books is similar to my own so I bought the book on Kindle and enjoyed the allegory. The loner, the outcast, the enemy, the bullies all find expression in this tale of a hen who longs to be a mother but whose eggs are taken away every day. Even the enemy (weasel) has an important and natural role to play. (I won't spoil that.) I can see why the book is so beloved in Korea and is finding an audience around the globe. Comparisons to classics such Charlotte's Web seem overblown to me, but I have a hunch the translation may be responsible for my giving this sweet story one star less than I would otherwise have. It is a serviceable translation, but surely the original must have had richer language for the book to have hit the mark for so many people. Still, it is a lovely story to add to that small shelf of tales that use animals to reflect on the human condition.

7/10 The Hen who Dreamed she Could Fly is a modern fable for mid-graded children and adults with a young heart written by the Korean writer Hwang Sun mi.This is a short and sweet novella that you will devour in a seating. It has all the elements of any successful classic tale. For a start, the story is Universal as there are no location names nor human names, so the story could be happening anywhere, Korea, USA, or Spain. The story will also speak to any culture, religion or social class. The settings and characters are those of a traditional fable: a barn, anthropomorphic domestic animals; good, bad and evil characters; a hero, a subversion of the animal order, and an embedded moral.lesson. Unlike classic fables and folk tales, the moral lessons in this novella are very contemporary, very 21st century. The reading of the book is far from linear as there are different layers and themes touched at the same time, which will appeal to people of different conditions, even to people who see the world very differently. Two major themes are obvious to me: 1/ NATURE SIMPLY "IS" > Subverting nature is never going to work because Nature has a rhythm that simple "is". You can learn how Nature works to take a better advantage of it,to exploit it in a way, but you can't modify Nature itself. A gazelle would never want to eat a lion, not would be able. A man cannot eat kill a buffalo on his/her own unless s/he has a weapon, the weapon is not Nature. > Knowing what your true nature is will save you from havoc. > The call of the wild is an instinct that does not disappear when you tame a wild animal because their nature is just that. > Everything in Nature makes sense, even predators and scavengers. They are not nasty or ugly beasts, they are just as hungry as cute animals are. 2/ OUR NATURE DOES NOT ALWAYS EQUAL NATURE > We are what we decide to become. > Nature could limit us, but we can still overcome obstacles with willpower and determination, inventive, invention, patience and resolution and achieve anything. > Our birth family are not always those who treat us as family or those who treat us best. > An uterus doesn't make a mother. A woman can be barren and still be a good mother, a better mother than a birthed mother. As you see, there are some contradictory affirmations in these two main themes, and to me that was the main problem with the story, that the message was not clear enough, that it could say things that are contrary at the same time. There are embedded questions in the story, as well, and those are the more sensitive ones: > Does motherhood equal womanhood? > Does being of a different race or of the same gender make a difference in being a good parent? Said differently, can a mother from a race or gender that is not that the one one was born make a difference in your growing up? > Is surrogacy OK? > Does Nature define your nature? > What is more cruel, the cruelty of Nature or subverting Nature for the sake of personal fulfilment? Eventually, what you will enjoy the most about the book is the emotions that this foolish mother of a hen brings in you. Interracial and inter-religious couples will find their struggle reflected in this fable. The same will happen to same-sex parents. Any struggling single mother will cry at finding her harshness and devotion reflected. Foster-care mothers will see themselves reflected. The book will also touch non-mothers because the story will remind them of the abnegation, love and willingness to overcome obstacles that some mothers have, perhaps their own. The characters are well drawn. The weasel is my favourite as s/he knows who s/he is, his/her place in Nature, and doesn't apologise for whom s/he is, what other people think of his/her way of life or the hatred s/he attracts. Sprout the hen is foolish, yet we are immediately drawn to her compassion, selfless love, and the way she stands the harshness of life, even though she put herself in that position. The ending is great. A great lesson. Because there are things in life and in Nature you cannot change or subvert, as simple as that, you like it or not. The translation by Kim Chi-Young really flows. The language used is very simple, but I guess that was intentional in the original as this book is mainly addressed to children. Yet, sometimes I found some wording that was a bit off to me, probably because English is not my first language. However, there is one occasion that the word of choice seemed not appropriate. One of the sentences reads "She tried not to lose consciousness, wondering what was happening." (Loc. 64). I thought that a talking hen would have never used this expression because hens simply don't have consciousness, something one can easily put aside because this is a fable. However, talking in the third person of a hen, I would have said simply "not to faint." I thought, this would be easier to understand for children as well. This is, of course, a very personal appreciation. I love the black-and-white minimalist illustrations by Japanese artist Kazuko Nomoto's (aka Nomoco's), who is also the author of the paperback and hardcover's covers. There are very few illustrations in the book, just at the beginning of each chapter, and a flower motif at the end of each chapter. I thought there was room for more illustrations, and that the book would have benefited from more. As happens with other Korean books that become popular in the West, senseless comparisons to English-speaking novels immediately sprout or are summoned: Animal Farm: Reader's Edition and Charlotte's Web . Totally senseless! Those novels have nothing in common with this book except for the fact that they have animal characters in a farm. I have never read Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A story , which is another book frequently mentioned, so I cannot comment on that. Personally, the only influences that came to mind when reading it were Aesop's Fables (Illustrated) s, the The Ugly Duckling (Illustrated) , but these books are quite different in mood and message from all of those. A WARNING This book is not for small children and needs of parental supervision as deals with themes that aren't easily accessible to children. I would not give it or read it to a small children, unless they are older than 6y.o.a. KINDLE RENDERING Although you can easily individuate and zoom in the illustrations, the images are not very big, they don't fit the full page in my tablet. When you double-tap and individuate the image, this is still a bit small, even if you zoom it by pinch it out, and is not neat enough. This could be easily solved in the Kindle edition, so the image can be zoomed without losing quality and zoomed in more.

This is such a hauntingly beautiful story. Highly recommend this book. It appears simple but it is actually a wonderful very deeply affecting story.

Obtain this book and go somewhere quiet because you won't want to be interrupted until the end, then you'll smile.

It's an unforgettable lesson. Everybody should read this story. Simple yet profound, it's a thought-provoking tale that resonates with us all!

Super Geschichte!!! Alles Bestens. Empfehlenswert.

An easy to read short book that delves into the theme of motherhood in such a lovely way. Exploring the happiness, hardship, and grief that it brings. Also, the illustrations added a sweet and effective touch.

I've seen this billed occasionally as a children's book, but it's for all ages, who may take things from it on different levels. Like "To Kill a Mockingbird" this is a tale that resonates and you can come back to time and again. It touches on family, conventional and otherwise, the cycle of life, ecology, the afterlife, friendship, hardship, freedom (and what that may really mean), and survival. It may be written simply but it's deep, and I don't think you need to be an animal lover to be moved by this little masterpiece. If you do love animals, that's an added bonus.