Most rhyming retellings of traditional stories miss the mark and lose the original charm, but not in this case. Forest and Gaber's third collaboration bakes up a culinary concoction of cake (in place of bread) that is fresh, folksy and fun. Coincidentally, this is the second version published in 2006, the other one by Jerry Pinkney. As with all renditions, the animals vary. Gaber gives personality to the dog, a Corgi carrying a blue blanket, a black-and-white cat that plays with a string of yarn and a mouse who's always reading a book about mice in different languages. Her folk-art images cleverly use ovoid shapes as a motif throughout (portrait insets of the animals, for instance) and imaginatively depict how the hen carries out each step, e.g., she uses her beak to cut the wheat and to hold a wooden spoon to stir the batter. Forest's rhymes are a little more casual than Pinkney's. Refined or rustic? Libraries will want both. Who will help read and enjoy this story? Everyone. (Picture book/folktale. 4-7)

PreS-Gr 2 In this rhyming version of the workhorse story, a black-and-white kitten, corgi pup, and shiny-eyed mouse are the reluctant friends of Little Red Hen, who seems to wink conspiratorially at readers, as if to say, Here we go again! While cat is distracted by a yarn ball, dog wrestles with a blue blanket, and mouse surveys a sort of scrapbook of mice of many lands (complete with tags in German, Korean, Hebrew, and French, among other languages), Hen goes about her business, planting, cutting, grinding, and baking all by herself. But here, unlike most accounts, theres a twist: the lazy animals learn their lesson and are given a chance to redeem themselves: For after all is said and done, working together makes working fun. The rhyme schemes a bit bumpy at times and will require skilled reading aloud, but Gabers bold acrylic artwork and varied use of spacefrom full-bleed paintings to small, egg-shaped cameo vignettesand the infectious, familiar refrain of Not I, and, in this telling, My, my make this an appealing storytime and readers-theater selection. Kathy Krasniewicz, Perrot Library, Old Greenwich, CT