Little Golden Book Faceoff: The Poky Little Puppy vs The Little Red Hen
Instead of following his siblings when they all sneak out to play, the title character lags behind to observe other things. In the beginning, his independence is rewarded. The puppies had all dug a hole underneath the fence to escape from their yard, but only the Poky Little Puppy's siblings are caught. The Poky Little Puppy avoids punishment because he is away exploring as his mother scolds his siblings, and he comes home alone after everyone is asleep. The Poky Little Puppy then eats the rice pudding that the mother was planning to give all the puppies but withheld because of the fence-digging incident. This pattern then repeats itself, only with chocolate custard for dessert instead of rice pudding.
Only at the end of the book does fate catch up with the Poky Little Puppy. When the puppies are sent to bed without dessert a third time, they wait until they think their mother is sleeping, then sneak out of bed and fill in the hole they'd dug under the fence. The mother sees them doing this and rewards them with strawberry shortcake. The Poky Little Puppy not only arrives too late to get any strawberry shortcake, but is forced to squeeze between the fence boards since the hole has been filled in. The book concludes with Poky Little Puppy going to bed without a bite and feeling "very sorry for himself." The next day there is a sign outside that says "NO DESSERTS EVER UNLESS PUPPIES NEVER DIG HOLES UNDER THIS FENCE AGAIN!"
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In the tale, the little red hen finds a grain of wheat and asks for help from the other farmyard animals (most adaptations feature three animals, a pig, a cat, and a rat, duck, goose, dog, or goat [1]) to plant it, but none of them volunteer.
At each later stage (harvest, threshing, milling the wheat into flour, and baking the flour into bread), the hen again asks for help from the other animals, but again she gets no assistance.
Finally, the hen has completed her task and asks who will help her eat the bread. This time, all the previous non-participants eagerly volunteer. She declines their help stating that no one aided her in the preparation work. Thus, the hen eats it with her chicks leaving none for anyone else.
The moral of this story is that those who say no to contribution to a product do not deserve to enjoy the product: "if any would not work, neither should he eat."
