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Extra! Extra!: Fairy-Tale News from Hidden Forest
When the residents of Hidden Forest wake up and open their morning papers, they are in for a surprise.
An enormous beanstalk has mysteriously sprouted outside of Jack Blake's house, and Jack is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Pinocchio and Half-Chicken have set out on adventures of their own, and Tortoise and Hare are off to the races. Will they all find their happy endings? Hidden Forest News has got the scoops.
Written and laid out in newspaper format, this installment in the enchanting Hidden Forest series has received a new twist from Alma Flor Ada and Leslie Tryon. All of your favorite fairy-tale characters from Dear Peter Rabbit ; Yours Truly, Goldilocks ; and With Love, Little Red Hen are back, but this time they are hitting the presses and making headlines!
An enormous beanstalk has mysteriously sprouted outside of Jack Blake's house, and Jack is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Pinocchio and Half-Chicken have set out on adventures of their own, and Tortoise and Hare are off to the races. Will they all find their happy endings? Hidden Forest News has got the scoops.
Written and laid out in newspaper format, this installment in the enchanting Hidden Forest series has received a new twist from Alma Flor Ada and Leslie Tryon. All of your favorite fairy-tale characters from Dear Peter Rabbit ; Yours Truly, Goldilocks ; and With Love, Little Red Hen are back, but this time they are hitting the presses and making headlines!
32 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
34 people want to read
About the author
Alma Flor Ada
672 books188 followers(http://facebook.com/almaflorada)
Dr. Ada was the founder and First Editor in Chief of :
NABE, Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education
She has been active for many years in various professional associations including : IRA, International Reading Association
CRA, California Reading Association
CABE, California Association for Bilingual Education
USIBBY, US Branch of the International Board of Books for Young People
She is a member of :
Advisory Board of Loose Leaf Public Radio Programs
National Television Workshop
Between the Lines
Reading Up!, Natural Head Start Association
A frequent speaker at national and international conferences, Dr. Ada also works in school districts with children, teachers and parents.
The award-winning author of numerous children’s books and a prolific translator, Alma Flor Ada is a leading mentor and philosopher of bilingual education in the United States.
She has authored several reading programs, among them two Spanish reading programs :
Cielo abierto (K-6)
Vamos de fiesta! (K-3)
and of two English reading programs :
Signatures (K-6)
Collections (K- 6)
and is a series consultant for Relatos de la historia (1-5), a Spanish social studies program developed by Harcourt School Publishers.
Among her most substantive contributions to the transmission of Hispanic culture to children are :
Música amiga, a program for learning through songs, published by Del Sol Books
Puertas al Sol - Pathways to the Sun, published by Santillana
Latino poetry, Art, and Biographies for children, published by Santillana
Dr. Ada received her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Lima, Perú and did post-doctoral research at Harvard University as a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute and a Fulbright Research Scholar.
Dr. Ada was the founder and First Editor in Chief of :
NABE, Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education
She has been active for many years in various professional associations including : IRA, International Reading Association
CRA, California Reading Association
CABE, California Association for Bilingual Education
USIBBY, US Branch of the International Board of Books for Young People
She is a member of :
Advisory Board of Loose Leaf Public Radio Programs
National Television Workshop
Between the Lines
Reading Up!, Natural Head Start Association
A frequent speaker at national and international conferences, Dr. Ada also works in school districts with children, teachers and parents.
The award-winning author of numerous children’s books and a prolific translator, Alma Flor Ada is a leading mentor and philosopher of bilingual education in the United States.
She has authored several reading programs, among them two Spanish reading programs :
Cielo abierto (K-6)
Vamos de fiesta! (K-3)
and of two English reading programs :
Signatures (K-6)
Collections (K- 6)
and is a series consultant for Relatos de la historia (1-5), a Spanish social studies program developed by Harcourt School Publishers.
Among her most substantive contributions to the transmission of Hispanic culture to children are :
Música amiga, a program for learning through songs, published by Del Sol Books
Puertas al Sol - Pathways to the Sun, published by Santillana
Latino poetry, Art, and Biographies for children, published by Santillana
Dr. Ada received her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from the Pontifical Catholic University of Lima, Perú and did post-doctoral research at Harvard University as a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute and a Fulbright Research Scholar.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 17, 2012
Extra! Extra! Ada and Tryon use a clever newspaper format to tell the stories of several fairy tale characters. Through sequential issues of the Hidden Forest News classic stories, from Jack and the Beanstalk to the Tortoise and the Hare are told. The newspaper includes headlines on the strange massive beanstalk that has sprouted in the forest, op-eds on what should be done about the beanstalk, international news about Geppetto and the Half-Chicken of Mexico, as well as tongue in cheek advertisements on the back page.
The book uses illustrations in two ways. First, as black and white spot illustrations printed in the newspaper. Second, there are color illustrations that show Peter Rabbit delivering newspapers to residents all over Hidden Forest. These illustrations serve to not only show who is reading the news, but also serve as dividers between issues. Ada uses newspaper conventions, such as headlines and quotations, to provide visual, as well as textual interest. Ada’s vocabulary is rich with descriptive words to learn and share, such as “proposed,” “eliminated,” “extracted,” and “resilient.”
Full Review at Picture-Book-a-Day: http://picturebookaday.blogspot.com/2...
The book uses illustrations in two ways. First, as black and white spot illustrations printed in the newspaper. Second, there are color illustrations that show Peter Rabbit delivering newspapers to residents all over Hidden Forest. These illustrations serve to not only show who is reading the news, but also serve as dividers between issues. Ada uses newspaper conventions, such as headlines and quotations, to provide visual, as well as textual interest. Ada’s vocabulary is rich with descriptive words to learn and share, such as “proposed,” “eliminated,” “extracted,” and “resilient.”
Full Review at Picture-Book-a-Day: http://picturebookaday.blogspot.com/2...
June 28, 2017
This book would be great to use when talking about fairy tales (obviously) as well as allusions and inferences. I would also like to use it as a mentor text for newspaper articles. Actual newspapers are too difficult to read for most students so they spend so much time trying to decode it that they miss the point of using it to discover the style of the writing or try to copy it. This on the other hand would be easy to understand since they already know the fairy tales and could see the difference in style for a newspaper article. I also really like how the author does assume you've read the fairy tales so you have to infer how the story is changed or why they are reporting things in a particular way. Finally, they allude to other fairy tales in the advertisements and smaller pieces which would be great to demonstrate to the readers. Many purposes, one book! That's my kind of reading.
May 21, 2017
#Newspaper #fairytales #resolutions #Forest #YoungReaders #PictureBook #BookReview #ChildrensBooks #amreading Written in a newspaper format, the reporting begins with a mysterious enormous #beanstalk outside Jack Blake's house. #Engaging write up for young readers! #Mishmash expertly sewn together.
May 1, 2009
For over ambitious children who must really really like fairy tales.
November 25, 2009
WHOA! way too complicated. written like newspaper with fairy tale characters...not a read aloud so guess the audience may be elementary school readers...just wasn't that into it.
September 24, 2012
Very original!
February 6, 2013
Cute newspaper format picture book with headlines from a few favorite fairy tales.
January 7, 2015
Fairy tales told in the form of a series of newspapers. This book is best for elementary-aged readers and would come in handy when teaching students about writing.
February 25, 2016
This book would be a great mentor text for students learning to write a newspaper article or fractured fairytales!
June 30, 2017
Loved this upper grade picture book that turns commonly known events from fairy tales into a newspaper, including the editorial/opinion page and want ads. Cute!
April 14, 2024
I love the entire four book series by Alma Flor Ada that this book is part of. It's such a cute and inventive way to combine a bunch of fairy tale characters into one friendly community.
However, I feel this one was the weakest of the bunch. The change from letter format to newspaper format made everything feel more impersonal, and most of the beloved characters from the first three books (especially the first two) were almost completely omitted from the book. They appear in some of the illustrations between "issues" of the newspaper, but are wholly unpresent in the stories within. Instead, we're told about Pinocchio and the Half-Chicken, which take place through the "International" page of the paper - which only serves to add to the impersonal feel of the book. I think it would've been better to either make those characters residents of the Hidden Forest or bring in different stories entirely that focus on existing/new residents. I enjoyed the telling of Jack and the Beanstalk here, as it did exactly that and featured personal reactions from the characters the series had already introduced. The other two stories, for me, fell flat.
That said, the format has its charms. The little advertisements were very cute, clever... and rather funny. I also loved the Sports Page coverage of the race between the Tortoise and the Hare.
However, I feel this one was the weakest of the bunch. The change from letter format to newspaper format made everything feel more impersonal, and most of the beloved characters from the first three books (especially the first two) were almost completely omitted from the book. They appear in some of the illustrations between "issues" of the newspaper, but are wholly unpresent in the stories within. Instead, we're told about Pinocchio and the Half-Chicken, which take place through the "International" page of the paper - which only serves to add to the impersonal feel of the book. I think it would've been better to either make those characters residents of the Hidden Forest or bring in different stories entirely that focus on existing/new residents. I enjoyed the telling of Jack and the Beanstalk here, as it did exactly that and featured personal reactions from the characters the series had already introduced. The other two stories, for me, fell flat.
That said, the format has its charms. The little advertisements were very cute, clever... and rather funny. I also loved the Sports Page coverage of the race between the Tortoise and the Hare.
March 27, 2019
Read the Spanish translation of this.
December 16, 2020
What an interesting idea for a book. This would be great to use in a fairy tale unit or newspaper study.
January 25, 2021
Such good book to read with children when teaching them about the different sections in the newspaper.
September 28, 2021
I thought it was adorable. A little too advanced for the boys.
January 30, 2024
The story of Jack and the Beanstalk gets retold in the form of a newspaper. There are different sides of the story reported. It was a little wordy for me, but it was a good idea.
November 4, 2025
Checked out from Reedsburg Public Library (definitely different & creative, but a bit too wordy and choppy)
April 1, 2008
Definitely a different take on some of the most beloved fairy tales.
August 3, 2010
Fairy tales written in newspaper format. Good for a Fractured Fairytale Storytime.
May 30, 2013
This is kind of cute, you might be able to use it to introduce newspapers to kids.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews