Egg: Nature’s Perfect Package Review by Allison Trippe

Bibliography

Jenkins, Steve and Robin Page. 2015. Egg: Nature’s Perfect Package. Ill. by Steve Jenkins. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.       ISBN 978-0547959092

Summary

Veteran nonfiction author Steve Jenkins and co-author Robin Page write a fascinating informational survey book about eggs and the life cycle of animals. Egg: Nature’s Perfect Package contains an abundance of  interesting facts and realistic illustrations. From mammals, insects, and birds, to dinosaurs, reptiles and amphibians, readers will come to understand details about the varying sizes of eggs, incubation periods, hatching, and egg predators. Children and adults alike will be particularly interested in reading about the clever measures some creatures take to protect their eggs. Jenkins and Page offer a comprehensive introduction to the beginning of life in the natural world, and the instinctual effort for survival.

Critical Analysis

The egg-shaped introduction provides an overview of the book. It begins with general information about egg-laying creatures, then moves to more specific facts about characteristics of a variety of eggs. Each two-page spread contains information that is organized with a heading and subsequent facts, diagrams, and explanations. Authors carefully use a balance between verbal and visual access features. White space is distributed evenly throughout the book to avoid overcrowding of information and illustrations. Detailed drawings provide readers with highly visual images and diagrams of eggs, including a two-page spread of eggs shown at actual size. The final pages of the book include the cross-sections of two different types of animal eggs at different stages of development.

Although this book is geared toward a primary-age audience, the authors maintain the integrity of the content by using proper vocabulary terms throughout. More information about animals and additional reading lists are included in the last few pages of the book to give readers further reading opportunities and recommendations. The interesting facts and high quality illustrations make this book easy to read cover-to-cover or in small parts at a time.

Awards and Review Excerpts

• 2016 National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12
• 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Subaru SB&F Prizes for Excellence in Science Books, Finalist, Picture Book
• 2016 Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) Choices–Science, Technology, and the Natural World

From Kirkus Reviews: “Appealing, accessible, and accurate, this is another admirable creation.”

From Booklist: “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.”

Connections

• Use this book to extend a Life Sciences lesson on life cycles.
• Teach students about text features by showing them examples of diagrams, labels, illustrations, labels, and headings in this book.
• Art teachers can use this book to show examples of paper collages.
• Pre-teach new vocabulary terms such as strategy, survive, spawn, produce, nutrition, predatory, prey, offspring, incubate.
• Create a K-W-L chart with student before, during and after reading the book.

*Created as an assignment for a Texas Woman's University course.