The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly: A Novel

by Sun-mi Hwang

Other authorsChi-Young Kim (Translator), Nomoco (Illustrator)
Paperback, 2013

Description

"No longer content to lay eggs on command only to have them carted off to the market, a hen glimpses her future every morning through the barn doors, where the other animals roam free, and comes up with a plan to escape into the wild--and to hatch an egg of her own"--

Publication

Penguin Books (2013), 144 pages

User reviews

LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: This is the story of a hen named Sprout. No longer content to lay eggs on command, only to have them carted off to the market, she glimpses her future every morning through the barn doors, where the other animals roam free, and comes up with a plan to escape
Show More
into the wild—and to hatch an egg of her own.

An anthem for freedom, individuality and motherhood featuring a plucky, spirited heroine who rebels against the tradition-bound world of the barnyard, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is a novel of universal resonance that also opens a window on Korea, where it has captivated millions of readers. And with its array of animal characters—the hen, the duck, the rooster, the dog, the weasel—it calls to mind such classics in English as Animal Farm and Charlotte’s Web.

Featuring specially-commissioned illustrations, this first English-language edition of Sun-mi Hwang’s fable for our times beautifully captures the journey of an unforgettable character in world literature.

My Review: Jonathan Livingston Seagull meets Babe. To compare the book to Charlotte's Web is damned near heresy. In every generation, there's another fable of Independence Declared by ____ and the Struggles of _____ to xxxx. This is the 21st century's international publishing phenomenon in the genre, which the provincial, smugly self-satisfied Murrikin Megapublishers got 15 years after most places did.

If you're 14 and a sad, lonely, misunderstood girl, this is ideal to stuff into your locker. Also a grandmother's ideal gift for same. Older folks who've just become grandparents, adoptees and their mommies, those who are sentimental as all get-out, queue up for your copy.

The illustrations are so very spare and lovely and evocative that I gave the silly text 3 stars. But my serious objection to the book is that the hen's one true dream, the longing of her soul, the reason she's ready to fight a weasel fagodsake is:
She want to become a real hen and hatch an egg.
So, in other words, Motherhood Makes the Hen.

This is not a message I think needs further spreading. It has metastasized in our various cultures to the point that rich first-world folks go buy themselves a baby girl at the Chinese Baby Bazaar, or spend absurd amounts of money doing medical hoo-hah and get themselves their very own genetic descendants.

With seven billion people on the planet, this obsession, this personal value marker, needs to be re-thought and revised.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Cherylk
Spourt is a lay hen. All she does is lay eggs. Her spot in the coop gives her a good view of the barnyard. She can see all the other animals. She is envious of the other chickens and their babies. Spourt dreams of having a baby of her own. However that is not possible as the farmer's wife takes all
Show More
her eggs. So Spourt becomes uninterested in laying anymore eggs. Thus in the process, she becomes too weak. She is to be culled. By a miracle, Spourt survives with the help of a duck named Straggler.

Spourt gets shunned by the other farm animals. Spourt finds herself in the briar. There she finds a nest with an egg. The mother is no where to be found. Spourt lays on the egg and finds a sense of belonging.

I absolutely loved Spourt. She is one fierce hen. She won me over from the first moment I met her. She will always have a place in my heart and bookshelf. I could so get behind Spourt as I used to raise chickens. We also had ducks and turkeys. So I am familiar with farm life. The thought that all Spourt wanted was to lay an egg and raise a baby chicken was great. In addition, I have to give Spourt a big kudo for picking out her own name. The meaning behind Spourt's name is that "A spourt is the mother of flowers, it breathes, stands firm against the rain and wind, keeps the sunlight, and rears blindingly white flowers. If it weren't for spourts, there'd be no trees. A spourt is vital."

My other favorites of course were Straggler the duck and baby, Spourt's baby. Yes, Spourt had a baby! This is the type of book that you will want to read again and again. So you night want to pick up three copies. One to keep on your bookshelf, another to read over and over and the third to give to a friend. The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is a wonderous treasure of a read!
Show Less
LibraryThing member andrewcambs
'The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly' was one of those books that I saw at the tills at Waterstones, and I bought it on a whim.

I'm a sucker for book-covers, and this one stood out, and got me picking it up to read the blurb.

It's a fairly short book, and this includes a few pages of monochrome
Show More
illustrations. The story flows perfectly, and maintains pace.

Sprout's journey, is a tough one, with many barriers ahead of her - physical, psychological and social. The story tackles class, death, prejudice, and love, ending in the only way it could.
Show Less
LibraryThing member andrewreads
This is a short, simple story/fable that details the hardships of being an egg-laying hen who can no longer lay eggs. The story touches on some pretty serious themes like loneliness, abandonment, and self-sacrifice but it does so with exceedingly spare prose.

Maybe I'm a little jaded, but after
Show More
looking at some of the reviews/blurbs for this book (which were all quite good) I thought it was going to be extraordinary, but it was just... okay. Nice, but not particularly moving. Also, it should be noted that there are some lovely sketches/illustrations scattered throughout the text; these were probably my favorite part of the book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member debnance
The hen is in a cage. Every day she lays an egg. The egg is collected each day. She wants so much more from life. She longs to raise a chick.

When the owner of the hen's farm learns the hen can no longer lay eggs, the hen is put out. And that is when her real life begins.

I liked this little story
Show More
very, very much.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Fliss88
Don't usually pick up a book like this, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Possibly a children's story, it reminded me of when I read Charlotte's Web. It is written very simply at a slow pace, but one you will read in just a couple of days. A lovely story about a battery hen, who managed to escape the
Show More
coup, and found she had more courage and determination to realise her dream, than she'd ever imagined. A dream of keeping and hatching just one, of her many eggs.
Show Less
LibraryThing member starbox
"At the nexus of fable, philosophy, children's literature and nature writing", 27 December 2015

This review is from: The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly: A Novel (Paperback)
Quite a charming little book, suitable for anyone from about ten up.
For a child, this will be read as an adventure tale, as we
Show More
follow battery-farm chicken, Sprout. She longs to sit on her eggs and hatch them into babies, but "she couldn't so much as touch her own eggs, not even with the tip of her foot." And as Sprout gets old and exhausted, her future looks precarious...
But Sprout's courage and urge to achieve something in life lead her out into the world...
The adult reader will pick up on numerous deeper themes: motherhood, self-sacrifice, racism among others.
As I say it has a certain charm, but for me personally the short sentences and anthropomorphic characters failed to keep me riveted and though it was only 134 p (much of that simple b/w drawings) I was glad to get to the end.
Probably *2.5
Show Less
LibraryThing member herschelian
Strange little tale - the title says it all; Part fable, part parable. The first South Korean book I have read. Chosen by my Beijing Bookclub.
LibraryThing member pharrm
great fable.
LibraryThing member Jennifer35k
A beautiful story about a hen named Sprout, who was born to live her life in a chicken coop and destined to die in one. Before her death she has only one wish and that is too raise a chick of her own. Not agreeing with her fate, she breaks free of the coop and leaves for more open pastures. On her
Show More
journey of the unknown, she battles a weasel to gain custody of an unclaimed egg. Seeing her chance at mother hood she adopts the egg and the baby inside. Within the egg lies a surprise that will test the true nature Sprout. The egg will teach Sprout the constant prejudices that all living beings face, but can overcome with determination. Will Sprout be able to raise her baby in a judgmental world? Can she protect her baby from the hungry Wiesel?

This book was a lovely read that I found to be both warm and educational. It is very easy to read and the story brings home a simple message of love. The author’s creative rendition of animals allowed a deeper message to get across to the readers that might have been more difficult if people were involved. I am happy to read they turned this book into a movie. It reminds me of stories such as Charlotte’s Webb and Frog and Toad Together. I must thank the author and goodreads for sending this book to me for review. It was a charming read and I am happy that it is so successful.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ParadisePorch
(Fiction, Literary, Translated, Korean)

Called a Korean ‘fable for our time’, this is the tale of Sprout, a self-named battery laying hen who has one dream: to be a yard hen so she can hatch an egg and raise a baby. She escapes a mass cull operation, and finding herself outside the fence, finds
Show More
an egg in the hedge to sit on. She hatches a duckling, which she raises, to find that it is accepted as neither duck nor chicken.

Although it examines themes of freedom, motherhood and prejudice, its effect on me was only so-so.

Thank you to Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea whose review first prompted me to add this to my TBR list.
Show Less
LibraryThing member fothpaul
Took me a while to finish this one. I enjoyed the layers to the story and what it had to say about belonging, identity, hopes and dreams. The blunt style of the translation didn't drag me in. The setting is unique as are the characters which makes it more interesting than it might have been. The
Show More
book was also short, which was good.
Show Less
LibraryThing member AR_bookbird
I am so happy that I had the chance to read this book...I don't think I will forget Sprout for a long time. Such a meaningful story full of meaning.
LibraryThing member LibraryCin
Sprout is an egg-laying hen, but is going to be culled. She manages to get free before she dies, but is not welcome in the farm-yard. She has always wanted to lay an egg and be able to sit on it and hatch it and raise the chick, so imagine her happiness when she finds a deserted egg that she is
Show More
able to hatch!

I really enjoyed this. I love animals, and really felt for Sprout. Even if they weren’t animals, there is a lot of mother-child type interactions going on between Sprout and the little one. And interesting (and sad) interactions between Sprout, the little one, and the other farm animals.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lydia1879
I finished this book in two sittings, and it was lovely.

The writing style is sweet and simple and very layered, all at once. Sprout, a battery hen, destined to spend her life laying eggs, is a wonderful heroine. This book provides so much commentary on motherhood and freedom and identity and what
Show More
sacrifice means.

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly is like Animal Farm, with none of the sexism and all of the feminism. I liked that it was written with enough detail to not just be an allegorical tale. The illustrations for each chapter are wonderful and whimsical and I feel like I got a lot out such a short book, but I would happily read it again.

I would absolutely recommend this book. c:
Show Less
LibraryThing member Bookish59
Lovely, sad fable about a hen craving freedom, motherhood, and a place in the world.

Sprout is 'just' a hen but in wanting her independence she becomes strong, capable, smart and caring. Having a 'baby' gives her life true purpose.

Beautiful!
LibraryThing member Pepperwings
A hen's journey, learning how to be a mother, when she couldn't have her own babies. It seems a little like a children's book, but there are some themes that might not be kid-friendly. Then again, kids need to learn the good and bad in life, so maybe it is. I enjoyed the read, it seemed a little
Show More
like poetry.
Show Less
LibraryThing member greeniezona
This book had been on my to-read list FOREVER. Somewhere I saw this described as a Korean Charlotte's Web, and I think that is just about perfect. A farmyard of anthropomorphized animals, an extremely earnest narrator, with the farms as The Man who won't just Let The Animals Live! Messages of
Show More
following your dreams, resilience, and self-sacrifice, while also side-eyeing scarcity mentality. Less focused on winning the state fair and more focused on not getting eaten by Weasel. A fast read appropriate for kids and adults alike.
Show Less

Language

Original language

Korean

Original publication date

2013-11-26

Physical description

144 p.; 5.2 inches

ISBN

0143123203 / 9780143123200
Page: 0.1931 seconds