The Hired Hand

The Hired Hand
Written by Robert D. San Souci
Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
1997

This African-American folktale tells the story of Old Sam, Young Sam, and their new hired hand, who is known as New Hand throughout the book. Old Sam is very kind and hard working, while his son Young Sam would rather take the easy way out. When New Hand begins working in their sawmill, Young Sam takes advantage of it, orders him around, and has him do his work for him. When an old farmer comes by one day and complains of a bad back, New Hand asks Old Sam and Young Sam to go off into the woods while he helps the farmer. Old Sam does as he's asked, but Young Sam's curiosity gets the best of him and he sneaks back to watch New Hand work his magic, and then takes advantage of New Hand's generosity towards the old farmer. When Old Sam goes out of town, Young Sam continues to take advantage of New Hand, who ends up leaving and not returning. When the farmer comes back and wants New Hand to work his magic on his wife, Young Sam takes his money...but will he be able to achieve the same results as New Hand?

This story teaches some very good lessons to readers of all ages, including treating others kindly and to always work hard. As with his other books, Jerry Pinkney's pencil and water color illustrations add a great deal of detail to the story. We are presented with a vivid picture of what is happening in the story with both the descriptive text and illustrations. This book would be great to use with a unit on fables and folktales.