Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood
Published 1987
Genre: childrens, folk tales
What does the text say?
Published 1987
Genre: childrens, folk tales
What does the text say?
- This is a folk tale about a witch who visits the home of 7 children and turns them into 7 different foods. Their mother comes to rescue them, but must correctly guess which child is which food, otherwise the witch will eat them all for supper.
- Key themes: good vs. evil, trickery, logic
- Setting: medieval or pre-medieval Europe
How does the text work?
- The sentences are not too long or complex, but there is a fair amount of text and dialogue in the story. The children's names are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so there is a lot of repetition in the story.
- Pictures directly follow the text
- Some words are old-fashioned and will not be recognized by children, like egg pudding or porridge.
What does the text mean?
- This story has a clear theme of good and evil. Children will immediately recognize the witch as bad and the mother as good. They will also recognize this as a common type of folk or fairy tale, similar to Hansel and Gretel.
- Underlying themes could be greed/gluttony, light vs. dark (the witch is old and dark, the children are happy and bright)
How could we teach literacy?
- Word recognition/emergent literacy: children will recognize the days of the week. They can repeat them along with you as you read to them.
- Emergent literacy: The pictures of the food follow the story. Emergent readers can point to the different foods on the page as they are read aloud.
- Vocabulary: a list of words common to folk tales can be made and studied for a genre unit- hearth, witch, supper, trickster, etc
Background knowledge:
- Children should know that witches are considered evil in fairy tales. Reading other, more common tales with witches first could help
- Brief overview of "medieval times" or simply "long ago" could be connected to whatever ancient culture is being studied in social studies
- Otherwise, the story is straightforward and easy to see.
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