During the past three years, the author has been exploring Grade 5 students' processes of reading and understanding contemporary picturebooks with Radical Change characteristics and metafictive devices, and examining how students use their knowledge of these characteristics and devices to create their own texts. "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales," a Caldecott Honor award winner, was one of the picturebooks that the Grade 5 students read and discussed during each year of the research. In this article, the author focuses on the students' responses to the Little Red Hen because of her role in both the storytelling and the design of the book. Many children wrote something about the Little Red Hen in their written responses, and all of the students talked about the chicken during their peer-led small group discussions. The article discusses how the Little Red Hen's character and behaviours draw reader attention to the defiance of convention in "The Stinky Cheese Man." (Contains 1 footnote.)