A young soldier is fighting in the trenches of wartime France when he finds a hen, skinny, scruffy, and starving. He tucks her into his jacket and takes her with him. The other soldiers laugh when they see him looking after her and sharing his meagre rations of food, but when the hen thrives and begins to lay eggs for them, they realise that perhaps survival and hope are possible after all. A beautiful story of unexpected friendship in the midst of fighting and devastation.

 

 

There are 40 pages in this book.

This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+).

This book was published in 2016 by Scholastic .

Jennifer Beck is the author of many titles, including The Bantam and the Soldier, Nobody's Dog and A Present from the Past. Lindy Fisher's first work for Scholastic NZ Ltd was Nobody's Dog, a stunning, studied and careful work that broke new ground in illustrating, and which was shortlisted for the 2006 NZ Post Awards, as was their second collaboration, A Present from the Past in 2007. With this new project she has worked with Jennifer again to ensure complete accuracy, believing that historical topics must be well researched and credible.