Guess What Is Growing Inside This Egg - Hardcover

Posada, Mia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822561921 ISBN 13: 9780822561927

Publisher: Millbrook Press ™, 2007

Synopsis

Crack, crack...animal babies are hatched all over the place. Can you figure out who's who?

Watercolor and collage illustrations depict close-up scenes of an egg or eggs about to hatch. The text hints at what the eggs contain: "Hidden in a rock cave/ Deep beneath the ocean waves/ Their mother wraps her long arms around/ To keep these eggs safe and sound." The observant young nature lover will find a visual clue of what animal the mother might be. The next spread provides the answer-in this case, it's an octopus. The second spread also provides fascinating facts about the species.

The book features a number of species ranging from spiders to penguins to octopuses, and the back matter provides more information about the actual size of various eggs and how they develop.

About this title

About the Author

Mia Posada grew up in Minneapolis, then studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also studied art in Florence, Italy, and illustration at Academy of Art College in San Francisco, California. Mia has written and illustrated numerous books including: The Long, Long Journey: The Godwit's Amazing Migration, Who Was Here?: Discovering Wild Animal Tracks, and Summer Green to Autumn Gold: Uncovering Leaves' Hidden Colors. She illustrated Plants Can't Sit Still which was named a Kirkus Best Children's Books and won the NCTE Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts Award. She lives in Golden Valley, Minnesota with her husband and their three kids.

Reviews

Kindergarten-Grade 2—Eggs that do not come in stock sizes suited to specially designed cartons at the supermarket (no matter what the kids think) can be fascinating in their infinite variety. For each different kind of ova, Posada presents a clue-filled verse, a teasing fragment of a watercolor collage, and the universal question about what is developing inside the featured egg. A quick flip of the page reveals the answer with a full-blown illustration and an informative paragraph on the featured creature. (Yes, a purist might carp on being told the spider spun her egg case "with her eight long legs" with nary a mention of spinnerets, but spiders do use their legs to distribute the spun silk, so never mind.) The text is brief and to the point, and the charming collages generate Waldo-like searches for a clue to parental identity. Final pages present the eggs in question in their actual sizes and a step-by-step visualization of the miraculous changes inside a duck egg from the 4th to the 26th day. For a tighter focus, think of titles like Martin Jenkins's The Emperor's Egg (1999), Ruth Horowitz's Crab Moon (2000, both Candlewick) or Dianna Aston's luminous An Egg Is Quiet (Chronicle, 2006). Attractive, informative, and fun for the younger set.—Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This attractive picture book presents six animals that hatch from eggs: penguins, alligators, ducklings, sea turtles, spiders, and octopuses. Each appears on a pair of double-page spreads. The first spread is a guessing game, telling a little about the animal in two rhymed couplets, showing a close-up of an egg in its natural setting, and asking "Can you guess what is growing inside this egg?" The next spread reveals the answer to the riddle and offers information about the featured animal's physical attributes and behaviors. Distinctive collage-and-watercolor artwork offers eye-catching views of the animals within their habitats. Back matter includes a spread showing the actual sizes of the eggs in the book and another showing a cross-sectional view of a duck developing within an egg. With its playful use of a questions-and-answer structure to engage children, this will be a good read-aloud choice for egg-related science units in the primary grades. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Millbrook Press ™
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822561921
• ISBN 13: 9780822561927
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Posada Mia
• Number of pages: 32