Heckedy Peg

Written by Audrey Wood

Illustrated by Don Wood

Harcourt Brace and Company, 1987

Genre: Children's Fiction; fantasy

Reading Level: Ages 4-8

28 pages

Heckedy Peg is a fantastical story about the love of a family. A mom and her seven children, named after the days of the week, live together in a cute country cottage. One day the mom leaves to go to the market and she promises to bring each of the children one thing that they want. They each tell her one thing they want, all happen to relate to food in some way. Soon after she leaves, the children are playing and a witch comes to the door and asks for a light for her pipe. Though they were told to not talk to strangers, the witch persuades her way in and using her magic pipe she turns the children into different foods and takes them back to her hut. When the mother returns home and discovers her children gone she seeks out her children and with the help of a bird finds her way to the witch's hut. After some persuasion and some trickery the mother convinces the witch to let her in. The witch tells the mom that her children are the foods on the table and that the only way she can save them is to guess which child is which food on her first try. Thanks to the mother's wits she guesses each child based on what they asked for from the market. As she named the last child the children turned back into themselves, and after a sweet reunion, they chased the witch through the town and off a bridge.

I would recommend this for any child who has an active imagination and possibly for a child who's having a hard time following their parent's rules. :)

I personally can't think of any conflicts that could come from this book.

Reading this as a child, and reading it now, i enjoyed it equally. It's a book with a great lesson about obeying your parents, with an exciting twist. It shows the power of wit, and the consequences of bad decisions. I especially loved the illustrations, they are gorgeous and extremely well detailed, portraying the text perfectly.

My rating: 5 out of 5