ALA Booklist (Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2011)

In their latest farcical outing, a spin on the classic folktale "The Little Red Hen," the Stevens sisters tap into kids' inherent curiosity about the after-hours classroom. "Let's get to work!" announces bossy Little Red Pen, poised to correct stacks of homework. All of the supplies cowering in the desk drawer have excuses: Stapler's back hurts from all the pounding; Pencil's worn down to a nub. Taking charge on her own, Little Red Pen works through the night until, in staggering exhaustion, she rolls off the desk and into the trash can, "The Pit of No Return." Who can save her? Her duty-shirking friends, who come up with a brilliant scheme that even ropes in Tank, the notoriously lazy classroom hamster. The story loses momentum during the long rescue process, but the steady supply of puns and zany in-jokes balances the clear messages about teamwork and will keep kids engaged, while both words and pictures create distinct, hilarious, highly animated characters from everyday objects. Pair this with Kate Banks' The Eraserheads (2010), another story about the secret life of school supplies.

Horn Book (Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)

With a stack of papers to grade, Little Red Pen calls for help from her friends the stapler, scissors, eraser, etc.; their excuses quickly mount up. After Little Red falls into the trashcan, though, the lazy office supplies rescue her. This rollicking read-aloud, with humor-filled watercolors, includes enough plays on words to keep even the most jaded reader chortling.

Kirkus Reviews

Obviously inspired by "The Little Red Hen," this goes beyond the foundation tale's basic moral about work ethic to explore problem solving, teamwork and doing one's best. Nighttime at school brings the Little Red Pen out of the drawer to correct papers, usually aided by other common school supplies. But not this time. Too afraid of being broken, worn out, dull, lost or, worst of all, put in the "Pit of No Return" (aka trash), they hide in the drawer despite the Little Red Pen's insistence that the world will end if the papers do not get corrected. But even with her drive she cannot do it all herself—her efforts send her to the Pit. It takes the ingenuity and cooperation of every desk supply to accomplish her rescue and to get all the papers graded, thereby saving the world. The authors work in lots of clever wordplay that will appeal to adult readers, as will the spicy character of Chincheta, the Mexican pushpin. Stevens' delightfully expressive desk supplies were created with paint, ink and plenty of real school supplies. Without a doubt, she has captured their true personalities: the buck-toothed stapler, bespectacled scissors and rather empty-headed eraser. Teachers will certainly find themselves wishing for their own arsenal of supplies to help them with their grading, and students may take a second glance at that innocuous-looking red pen on the teacher's desk. (Picture book. 5-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Initially echoing the plot of "The Little Red Hen," sisters and longtime collaborators Stevens and Crummel introduce a bespectacled, schoolmarmish red pen with a stack of papers to grade. Her desk-drawer friends, however, refuse to help, even when the Little Red Pen insists, "If these papers aren't graded, the students won't learn.... The sky might fall. It might be the end of the world!" When the pen,

School Library Journal (Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2011)

Gr 2-4 In a schoolroom take on this classic tale of cooperation, the teacher's tools pool their energies to solve a problem. The Little Red Pen has fallen into the trash, exhausted after working alone long into the night. The inhabitants of the desk drawerstapler, pushpin, scissors, highlighter, eraser, pencil, paper clipseach have a lame reason for not helping the pen, but then they realize the error of their ways: if the papers don't get graded, it will be "the end of the world." The rescue isn't easy, but using a little ingenuity and a finally wide-awake classroom hamster, the world doesn't end, the papers get graded, and the friends vow their loyalty for the future. Stevens's enchanting, well-imagined, dimensional cartoon-style drawings of the office-supply characters imbue each one with a distinct personality to match their dialogic voices. That dialogue appears in character-specific fonts against fully illustrated backgrounds and gives the story a cinematic feel. Adults will need Jim Dale's range of voices for a memorable read-aloud, but the ubiquity of graphic novels and resurgence of comics for all age groups assures that young readers will have no trouble following the action. Extend a science lesson on pulleys and levers; stop and start the reading for a lesson on prediction; and pull out your six-traits writing workbooks so students can describe the characters or action. This book is recommended for any classroom and should find a home in most libraries.— Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC