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CM . . .
. Volume XI Number 8 . . . . December 10, 2004
excerpt:
While collections may already have other versions of this tale, it is Stefan Czernecki's illustrations which will set this version apart from others. He has illustrated the tale with very simple, but brightly coloured art that is most appropriate for younger audiences, especially in how the varying emotions of the winged characters have been captured by Czernecki's illustrations. As well, he has presented his images in panels that function almost like frames of a movie while also suggesting the forward movement of the story. Czernecki has subtly imbedded the tale's national roots by incorporating the Danish flag into one of the illustrations. Recommended. Dave Jenkinson teaches courses in children's and adolescent literature at the Faculty of Education, the University of Manitoba.
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Originally written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1852 and entitled "Det er ganske vist" in Danish,
the title of this short tale, which was included in Andersen's Fairy Tales, has been variously
translated as "There is No Doubt About It" and "It's Quite True." In this new translation, by Mus
White, the Andersen tale gets yet another name, but the story remains essentially true to the
original. A hen, having plucked a feather from her body, finds the effect to be quite becoming and
jokingly says so aloud. Her comment is overheard by a neighboring roosting chicken who passes
it on to her neighbour in an amplified and modified form. In turn, that conversation is overheard
by an owl and so the tale grows as it's transmitted across the town by various flying creatures
such as doves and bats, with each retelling escalating the original happening, until it returns to the
original hen as the story of five chickens who plucked out all their feathers to prove their love for
the flock's rooster and who then pecked each other to death. The hen, not recognizing her own
story, takes it to the newspapers so that it can be printed as a warning to other chickens.