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Summary
Summary
Henrietta likes her quiet life. A morning swim, a cup of tea--all is serene. But everything changes when she bumps her head and winds up with a goose egg--a REAL goose egg. Henrietta tries to return the baby goose to the nest, but her flock has flown. It's up to Henrietta to raise her. Goose isn't anything like Henrietta. She's flappy, and noisy, and exhausting. But Henrietta raises that goose right. She teaches her to swim, and to honk, and to fly. When Goose flies off with the other geese, Henrietta is so proud! And then . . . lonely. How quiet her life feels now. But the love you give has a way of coming back to you. And Henrietta has a wonderful surprise in store. . . .
Author Notes
LIZ WONG was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she spent her early childhood painting and clambering about in mango trees. She is a painter and a freelance illustrator, with a focus on illustration for children. To learn more about the author and her work, visit LizWongIllustration.com or follow her on Twitter at @LizWongart.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Henrietta the elephant loved her quiet, orderly life, in which she could do anything she wanted anytime she wanted. She even had quiet time to think. But on an underwater swim Henrietta inadvertently bumps into an elevated goose nest and comes away with quite a bump on her head. A goose egg, one might say. She bandaged her sore head and waited patiently for it to heal. In no time at all, the bandage bursts and out pops a baby goose. Henrietta had a literal goose egg on her head and now this gosling thinks Henrietta is her mother. What to do? Rendered in a soft palette using watercolors, colored pencils, and gouache, Wong offers a gentle story of imprinting, to be sure, but more so a story of finding love where and when it's least expected. And love, as everyone knows, changes everything. VERDICT A charming read-aloud that's a perfect choice for one-on-one or small group sharing.-Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Henrietta is a quiet-loving elephant who "savored the stillness of the morning as she sipped her Darjeeling" from a porcelain teacup grasped in her trunk. She enjoys swimming underwater in the lake, where she gets "lost... in her thoughts." One day, though, she gets "a little too lost" and drifts head-first into a piling, knocking a goose egg from its nest. She's unaware that the egg has landed between her ears, so when she feels a metaphorical "goose egg," she dutifully bandages her sore head and waits "for the bump to heal." After the fuzzy gosling hatches from the egg and identifies Henrietta as "Mama!", and her actual mother is nowhere to be found, the pachyderm takes the imprinting to heart, painting her face and trunk to resemble a goose's body and neck as a teaching aid before she shows the gosling how to look for food, swim, and flap her wings. Though Henrietta urges Goose to fly, the elephant doesn't love the quiet so much after her charge is gone. Wong (Quackers) solves that conundrum in a cacophonous finale to her quirky family tale. Ages 4-8. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Once Henrietta the elephant's quiet is interrupted, there may be no going back to being satisfied with solitude.Henrietta's a classic introvert. She loves her Darjeeling and the morning paper. She loves swimming below the noisy geese at the lake and savoring the peace underwater. But one day, the elephant gets "a little too lost" in her thoughts, and she bonks her head on a piling. She bandages the "goose egg" she feels on her head with her trunk. (In-the-know listeners will be screaming with delight.) Henrietta's brought up short when her egg hatches and she finds herself a "Mama!" When she is unable to return the imprinted baby to the nest, Henrietta takes her in, but her peace and solitude are shattered, and that only worsens as Goose grows. Finally, the clever elephant uses a brush and paint to transform her head into a mama goose, and she teaches the bird all she needs to know about being a goose. Goose flies off in the fall, but Henrietta's quiet is now emptinessuntil Goose returns with goslings of her own. Wong's watercolor, colored pencil, gouache, and Photoshop illustrations are delightfully spare, keeping the focus on the expressive elephant and her dilemma. Henrietta is the only character with personality; Goose (and her goslings) is merely cute. While a sweet tale, it carries with it the rather overbearing assumption that introverts are, unbeknownst to them, probably actually lonely.Adoptees may appreciate the message; introverts may want to look elsewhere. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This lovely lesson about expanding one's horizons posits that sometimes you need to be knocked on the head in order to change. That's what literally happens to Henrietta, an elephant who loves to be alone and for things to be quiet and routine. She adores having calming cups of tea and going for a soothing swim in the lake. The only thing that ruffles her placid existence is the presence of squawking geese on the lake's surface, but Henrietta dips below, escaping all the commotion. One day, Henrietta swims into a piling topped with a nest and gets a large lump on her head, which turns out to be an actual goose egg. Unaware of her new cargo, the elephant swims home, where the egg hatches, the gosling imprints on the elephant, and Henrietta's quiet life is turned upside down. The wonderful thing about this laugh-out-loud story is the way Henrietta rises to the unsought challenges of raising the gosling, teaching it to fly, and then letting it fly away. Henrietta's realization that a little adventure and chaos can be a good thing is a great way to represent caring for another. The gentle pastel-hued illustrations, done in watercolors, colored pencils, and gouache, give warmth and comic details to the story. A captivating and endearing life lesson.--Connie Fletcher Copyright 2018 Booklist
