The Hen who Dreamed She Could Fly: A Book Experience

A book with such a childish title is anything but childish. It reminds you of Animal Farm by George Orwell, wherein animals denote a communist society. Here, the book reminds you of dreams one deeply cherishes and lives for, motherhood, and empathy. The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, written by Sun-mi Hwang, will fill your heart, drench you with love, and move your core. It can definitely be read by all for its philosophical brilliance and ease of storytelling.

The book deals with a hen named Sprout, who lives in a coop with several other hens who are nurtured by a farmer family to lay eggs. The hens are fed, and their egg is collected each morning. Sprout, however, has had it enough, and she pledges to not lay any other egg without choice anymore. She wants an egg that can hatch to make way for a chick. With no egg being delivered, Sprout is destined to be culled by the farmer’s family. She though, in some way, escapes the butcher and starts her life as a wild hen, who eventually becomes a mother, but whose chick she becomes the mother is the twist she didn’t think she would have to face.

The book is mostly to be read by adults for a deeper understanding and figurative sense, but it can definitely be read by children just for the literal sense. It is a lovely book on dreams and achieving them, be those of motherhood for a hen past her glory, or to fly when you are physically not meant to.