Egg: Nature's Perfect Package

by Robin Page, Steve Jenkins (Illustrator)

Overview

"Appealing, accessible, and accurate, this is another admirable creation." —Kirkus

Crack the code of the incredible egg in this beautifully illustrated nonfiction picture book by Caledcott Honor-winning team Steve Jenkins and Robin Page.

Hatching a plan for survival isn’t always easy in the wild. And how animals lay, protect, and even use each other's eggs as a food source help reveal the life cycle of the natural world.

Eggs come in all shapes and sizes. The ostrich’s is the largest, but some are so small, you need a microscope to spot them. Animals hide them and disguise them in smart and surprising ways, too. Some abandon their eggs, while others protect them fiercely and carry them wherever they go.

There are as many kinds of eggs as there are animals that depend on them, because in the animal kingdom, the fight for survival begins with the simple, but extraordinary, egg.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063286696
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/30/2024
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Robin Page has worked on numerous bestselling and award-winning titles with her husband and collaborator, Steve Jenkins, including Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Steve Jenkins wrote and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative.

Editorial Reviews

"Created from cut and torn papers with interesting coloration and textures, Jenkins' distinctive illustrations show up well against the white backgrounds. This intriguing presentation will be an asset to many kindergarten and primary-grade classes."  — Booklist

"Appealing, accessible, and accurate, this is another admirable creation."  — Kirkus Reviews

"Like Jenkins and Page's other works, this delightful purchase combines big, bold illustrations with intriguing science." — School Library Journal

From the Publisher

04/01/2015
Gr 2–4—Jenkins and Page present a collection of facts about animals and their eggs. The layout is divided into spreads that present a different topic ("Where should I lay my eggs?" "Egg Packaging") in an introductory paragraph. That's followed by several examples ("Incubation" describes the male emperor penguin, which keeps eggs warm in a brood pouch), accompanied by beautiful illustrations rendered in Jenkins's trademark cut-and-torn paper collages, scattered across the page, leaving the copious amount of white space characteristic of this team's style. Some cases tend toward the grotesque (readers learn that the spider wasp stings a spider, lays her eggs on its body, and leaves it as food for her hatchlings), but all are presented in a purely scientific, factual tone. A diagram at the beginning of the book gives readers a look at the actual sizes of different eggs (a tarantula's, a leopard frog's, a scorpion fish's). The work concludes with cross-sectional diagrams of chicken and alligator eggs, showing the interior at different stages of development. There's also a list of very brief facts about each of the animals pictured. VERDICT Like Jenkins and Page's other works, this delightful purchase combines big, bold illustrations with intriguing science. A solid addition to the 590s.—Jill Ratzan, I. L. Peretz Community Jewish School, Somerset, NJ

School Library Journal

2014-12-22
With their characteristic design and choice of intriguing details, this prolific author-illustrator pair introduces "nature's perfect package": the egg.An egg-shaped introduction encapsulates the main ideas of this latest offering in a series of titles exploring nature's wonders. Almost every animal begins life in an egg. Some, like human eggs, are nurtured internally, but many more develop outside. Eggs come in an astonishing variety of shapes, sizes, colors and numbers and are tended to in myriad ways or simply strewn, developing on their own. All contain what's necessary to form and nurture the new creature. Spread by spread readers learn about the range of egg layers, egg sizes, how many are lain and where, egg eaters, egg protection, packaging, carrying, incubation and emergence. A final spread looks inside the eggs of a chicken and alligator as each creature develops over time, in five stages from embryo to hatchling. Text in the upper-left corner of each spread presents the topic. Realistic torn- and cut-paper images set on a plain white background are identified and explained in short paragraphs. The backmatter includes thumbnails and further information about the 54 egg-laying creatures pictured—from slugs and simple animals through insects, spiders, fish, amphibians and birds, plus two mammals (the mongoose and the platypus). Appealing, accessible and accurate, this is another admirable creation. (additional reading) (Informational picture book. 4-9)

Kirkus Reviews