Henny Penny1 / 24

Henny Penny was in the yard.

About this story

A free Grade 1 story from the Peabody library, Level 1. It has 24 short pages and about 180 words, so it reads in a few minutes. It is also called “Chicken Little”.

The short version

An acorn falls on Henny Penny's head, and she is sure the sky is falling. She sets off to tell the king, and four friends join her, until Foxy Loxy offers to show them the way and leads them toward his den. They run home, and Henny Penny finds the sky is still in place: it was only an acorn.

Quick facts

What it teaches

Look before you shout and run.

Where this story comes from

People all over Europe told this for hundreds of years. Joseph Jacobs wrote it down in England in 1890.

Who was Henny Penny?

Henny Penny is the hen in an old European folk tale, not a real person or a real hen. In the story she is hit on the head by an acorn and decides the sky is falling. In the United States the same hen is usually called Chicken Little. Joseph Jacobs put the Henny-Penny version in his book English Fairy Tales in 1890.

Is Henny Penny the same story as Chicken Little?

Yes. They are the same folk tale with different names: Chicken Little is the name used in the United States, and Henny Penny is the name Joseph Jacobs used in English Fairy Tales. Details change from version to version. In this one an acorn hits Henny Penny, while other tellings use a nut, a leaf or a pea.

What does “Chicken Little” mean?

People call someone a Chicken Little when that person keeps warning that something terrible is about to happen, usually with little reason. “The sky is falling!” is used the same way. Both expressions come from this folk tale.

More like this: fairy tales for kids · moral stories for kids

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More stories at Level 1

All the Level 1 stories, or the whole library.

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