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For Sure! For Sure!
In Mus White's skillful adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's classic folk story, "There Is No Doubt About It," the news that a hen has lost a feather grows into a humorous tale of five chickens engaged in battle as the story spreads from coop to coop and from hen to hen. This new translation is faithful to the original and yet remains as fresh and appealing today as the day it was written. Stefan Czernecki's bright primary illustrations and panel design reflect the comic boldness as each chicken passes along the story, until it is no longer recognizable to the original hen who started it in the first place. For Sure! For Sure! is a powerful story with a strong message that both children and adults will enjoy. This retelling of an old fairytale teaches readers the importance of citizenship and trustworthiness.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1852
4 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Hans Christian Andersen
7,963 books3,566 followersHans Christian Andersen (often referred to in Scandinavia as H.C. Andersen) was a Danish author and poet. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories — called eventyr, or "fairy-tales" — express themes that transcend age and nationality.
Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. Some of his most famous fairy tales include "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Nightingale", "The Emperor's New Clothes" and many more. His stories have inspired plays, ballets, and both live-action and animated films.
Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. Some of his most famous fairy tales include "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Nightingale", "The Emperor's New Clothes" and many more. His stories have inspired plays, ballets, and both live-action and animated films.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 17, 2018
Have you ever played the children's game "Chinese Whispers"? (Is it even still called that nowadays?) The game is played like this. You sit in a circle with your friends, and whisper a secret message to the child next to you, who whispers it to their neighbour, who passes it on it to the next in line, and so on. By the time it has got back to where it started from, the original sentence is often completely unrecognisable, sometimes causing much hilarity. And that is exactly what the warning is here, in this amusing tale about a group of farmyard chickens.
It's Perfectly True, also sometimes translated as "Absolutely True", or "For Sure! For Sure!" would be an extraordinarily bloodthirsty tale by Hans Christian Andersen, except that it is clearly a satire about how gossip can get out of hand.
A hen with a mischievous sense of humour inadvertently loses a single feather whilst preening herself. She says nonchalantly,
"The more I preen the lovelier I will grow!"
Everything has become blown out of all proportion, and the hen who first made the observation has no idea that the story started with her original joke, which has been lost. She is as indignant as all the others at the scandal!
A dire warning - but all tongue in cheek. Otherwise, wasting away until you die, for fashion or love, or killing your friends for the same reason, might be thought just a tad unreasonable.
(Note - You may recognise this game by another name, such as: "Whisper Down the Lane", "Broken Telephone", "Operator", "Grapevine", "Gossip", "Don't Drink the Milk" (however did that one start?), "Secret Message", "The Messenger Game", "Pass the Message" - or another very old English one, "Russian Scandal".)
It's Perfectly True, also sometimes translated as "Absolutely True", or "For Sure! For Sure!" would be an extraordinarily bloodthirsty tale by Hans Christian Andersen, except that it is clearly a satire about how gossip can get out of hand.
A hen with a mischievous sense of humour inadvertently loses a single feather whilst preening herself. She says nonchalantly,
"The more I preen the lovelier I will grow!"
Everything has become blown out of all proportion, and the hen who first made the observation has no idea that the story started with her original joke, which has been lost. She is as indignant as all the others at the scandal!
A dire warning - but all tongue in cheek. Otherwise, wasting away until you die, for fashion or love, or killing your friends for the same reason, might be thought just a tad unreasonable.
(Note - You may recognise this game by another name, such as: "Whisper Down the Lane", "Broken Telephone", "Operator", "Grapevine", "Gossip", "Don't Drink the Milk" (however did that one start?), "Secret Message", "The Messenger Game", "Pass the Message" - or another very old English one, "Russian Scandal".)
January 23, 2019
For Sure! For Sure!, retold by Mus White, illustrated by Stefan Czernecki
Originally written in 1852, Hans Christian Andersen's Der er ganske vist! has often been translated at It's Perfectly True , or It's Absolutely True! . This 2004 retelling by Mus White, accompanied by Stefan Czernecki's bold acrylic illustrations, takes a non-literal approach, rendering the title For Sure! For Sure!, a reference to the refrain of the many scandalized birds to be found in the story.
A cautionary tale about the power of gossip, it follows the transformation of a simple event - a "respectable" hen loses a feather, and comments that she looks better without it - into an outrageous tale involving five hens who pluck themselves naked and fight to the death, all for the love of a rooster. An amusing story - although by no means one of Andersen's best - that is well-told and well-illustrated in this adaptation. The cartoon-like illustrations, with their vivid colors, are the perfect complement to the humor of the tale.
Originally written in 1852, Hans Christian Andersen's Der er ganske vist! has often been translated at It's Perfectly True , or It's Absolutely True! . This 2004 retelling by Mus White, accompanied by Stefan Czernecki's bold acrylic illustrations, takes a non-literal approach, rendering the title For Sure! For Sure!, a reference to the refrain of the many scandalized birds to be found in the story.
A cautionary tale about the power of gossip, it follows the transformation of a simple event - a "respectable" hen loses a feather, and comments that she looks better without it - into an outrageous tale involving five hens who pluck themselves naked and fight to the death, all for the love of a rooster. An amusing story - although by no means one of Andersen's best - that is well-told and well-illustrated in this adaptation. The cartoon-like illustrations, with their vivid colors, are the perfect complement to the humor of the tale.
January 23, 2019
It's Perfectly True, illustrated by Janet Stevens.
Hans Christian Andersen's tale of gossip run wild is adapted and illustrated here by Janet Stevens, whose other projects in this vein include The Princess and the Pea and The Emperor's New Clothes . An amusing story of an innocent remark that grows more and more distorted, as it is overheard and repeated by a string of different birds, it reminded me a bit of the game of telephone.
Stevens' illustrated are humorous, with expressive bird faces communicating outrage and shock, and her narrative has an appealing, informal feeling to it. All in all, an engaging edition of one of Andersen's lesser-known tales, and that could be read together with For Sure! For Sure! , another picture-book retelling of the same tale, in a somewhat different style. Thank you Krista, for recommending this one!
Hans Christian Andersen's tale of gossip run wild is adapted and illustrated here by Janet Stevens, whose other projects in this vein include The Princess and the Pea and The Emperor's New Clothes . An amusing story of an innocent remark that grows more and more distorted, as it is overheard and repeated by a string of different birds, it reminded me a bit of the game of telephone.
Stevens' illustrated are humorous, with expressive bird faces communicating outrage and shock, and her narrative has an appealing, informal feeling to it. All in all, an engaging edition of one of Andersen's lesser-known tales, and that could be read together with For Sure! For Sure! , another picture-book retelling of the same tale, in a somewhat different style. Thank you Krista, for recommending this one!
September 1, 2022
I have arranged my takeaway thoughts into a haiku:
"Breathed into life light
As feathers fluttering down,
Words grow into storms."
"Breathed into life light
As feathers fluttering down,
Words grow into storms."
September 25, 2013
I'm usually pretty liberal about what kids can and can't read and I'd hate to be one of those people who needs to sanitize fairy tales, but even I thought this book was a bit much. Suicidal hens who kill themselves over roosters? pictures of chickens lying in blood?
Great story, with a lot of nuance. The gist of it is that a small story gets blown out of proportion. Unfortunately, the main idea of the story is lost between the grisly details. I think this would be a great conversation piece for middle school, but I don't know that smaller children would "get it." The language is also a bit much, as the roosters judge the hen's choices and determining if the hens are staying respectable. Thanks for reminding me that gender relations have indeed changed since 1988.
Great story, with a lot of nuance. The gist of it is that a small story gets blown out of proportion. Unfortunately, the main idea of the story is lost between the grisly details. I think this would be a great conversation piece for middle school, but I don't know that smaller children would "get it." The language is also a bit much, as the roosters judge the hen's choices and determining if the hens are staying respectable. Thanks for reminding me that gender relations have indeed changed since 1988.
July 10, 2024
FULL REVIEW ON MY WEBSITE
https://thebookcornerchronicles.com/2...
I gotta be honest here and say that after reading all of the stories written by Hans Christian Andersen, this one wasn’t the best.
This story doesn’t have any moral, reading it as an adult isn’t as fun as it would be for a child.
All of the characters here was pretty flat, but it is acceptable because it is a short story which means we don’t have a lot of time to get to know the characters in it
The writing style here was okay. But I can’t say a lot about it because it is a short story so of course we don’t get a lot here.
https://thebookcornerchronicles.com/2...
I gotta be honest here and say that after reading all of the stories written by Hans Christian Andersen, this one wasn’t the best.
This story doesn’t have any moral, reading it as an adult isn’t as fun as it would be for a child.
All of the characters here was pretty flat, but it is acceptable because it is a short story which means we don’t have a lot of time to get to know the characters in it
The writing style here was okay. But I can’t say a lot about it because it is a short story so of course we don’t get a lot here.
January 18, 2021
This is an immeasurably good story. Lines like this, "she had heard and not heard, as one must do in this world for the sake of peace and quiet" show the sheer sarcasm and wit the story has, mocking people who spread gossip at every moment the gossip spreads. In calling the original bird "respectable" we see this sarcasm, too. The moral is clear, of course: we should refrain from believing that which we receive via hearsay, and we should not gossip (unless it's to make entertaining stories).
April 13, 2022
A retelling of a Hans Christian Anderson story that I was not familiar with about the perils or folly of spreading gossip. A minor event in the chicken coop travels all around the farm (and into the local newspaper) thanks to chicken, owl, pigeon, and bat gossip that blows the event completely out of proportion. Boldly colored illustrations.
February 16, 2018
Lots of birds!
December 22, 2021
The telephone game, exaggerated.
July 25, 2022
That's funny and I would recommend it - the kids should read it because it will make some sense later in life how words spread and how important it is not to take things too literally.
September 5, 2022
A brief little cautionary tale about how rumors spread. It's quite funny!
March 17, 2023
I read this book 10+ times in the last 6 hours for a child and I’m so over it. My main gripe is that the book is very wordy. Other than that I didn’t mind reading it.
June 13, 2025
All stories are true, but this one is perfectly true!
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October 29, 2009Author: Hans Christian Anderson
Illustrator: Stefan Czernecki
Genre: Fiction Picture Book
Year Published: 2004
Reading Level: Ages 5-8; Fluent
Topic and Theme: Animals, Behavior, Feathers, Uniqueness
Curricular Use: Shared Reading, Read Aloud
Social: Gossiping
Literary Elements: Exaggeration, Humor, Personification
Text and Pictures: Funny, well-written. The illustrations are bright and very important to the story.
Summary: The story begins by a chicken spreading the news that one of the hens in the coop are plucking all of its feathers to stand out to the rooster. The chicken tells all of the other chickens, tells the owls, the owls tell the pigeons and the pigeons tell the bats.
Illustrator: Stefan Czernecki
Genre: Fiction Picture Book
Year Published: 2004
Reading Level: Ages 5-8; Fluent
Topic and Theme: Animals, Behavior, Feathers, Uniqueness
Curricular Use: Shared Reading, Read Aloud
Social: Gossiping
Literary Elements: Exaggeration, Humor, Personification
Text and Pictures: Funny, well-written. The illustrations are bright and very important to the story.
Summary: The story begins by a chicken spreading the news that one of the hens in the coop are plucking all of its feathers to stand out to the rooster. The chicken tells all of the other chickens, tells the owls, the owls tell the pigeons and the pigeons tell the bats.
October 12, 2009
This is a retelling by Janet Stevens of a Hans Christian Andersen tale, about how gossip can get out of hand. It's like that game where you whisper something in the ear of one person, who whispers it into the ear of the next person, etc., etc., until the last person, by which time the story has been completely changed due to mis-hearings, misunderstandings, and embellishments. I love Janet Stevens' illustrations-- she draws great chickens! The pools of blood around the dead bodies at the end was a bit much, though.
April 10, 2012
This book is done in a square orientation, unlike the more common portrait or landscape orientations. The illustrations are unrealistic and kind of gory. I find it a little disturbing but it might attract some younger readers who enjoy more violent things. The borders that go around the illustrations don't restrict the illustrations themselves because some of the illustrations bleed out of the border. I really like this affect.
August 4, 2014
The premise behind it is good, but I didn't care for the execution. Everyone learns how gossip can get out of hand and a story gets blown out of proportion. I didn't really think the story they picked was one easily exaggerated. It didn't really make sense what they said or how they reacted. A very good idea just not carried out in a way that will connect with children.
September 16, 2014
A chicken looses one feather in the beginning of the story and by the end of the book the story being told is that five chickens pecked out ALL their feathers and died. Gross pictures of bleeding chickens. I picked it because we always love a good chicken story but this was a little gory... Ewww!
June 18, 2014
Basically the dangers of gossip, but weirdly bloody for an illustrated children's book.
May 17, 2016
Läste på svenska. Första gången jag hört om den här. (Läste i MO4)
Den var helt finurlig. En fjäder kan bli en höna, eller hur man nu säger. Kreativt.
Den var helt finurlig. En fjäder kan bli en höna, eller hur man nu säger. Kreativt.
July 6, 2016
Not a bad story, but it wasn't told very clearly so my son was just confused.
March 4, 2020
A disturbing look on how gossip and rumours can get out of hand.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews