Honesty is always the best policy. Especially when it comes backed up by a cracking allegory…


Meet Hetty the hen who just couldn’t lay. Journey with her and her plucky, clucky sisters as she strives for the one thing she is desperate for above all else; a chick of her own to love. 


Written from the heart, by a mother who was told at the age of 14 that she could never have children, Hetty can be enjoyed as a story about kindness and sharing in its own right, or used to open a dialogue about egg donation and IVF.


This story was written to honour the author’s sister’s immeasurable act of love and altruism, (as Hetty says – ‘what’s in it for you? I can’t give one back, although I’d love to’) to help her daughter understand her own story and, in the hope that it might help other Hettys, Harriets and ‘chicks’ out there.

Illustrated by: Rebecca Williamson