Published by Macmillan Children’s Books, 2020.

We’re big fans of picture book duo Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet. They’re behind the brilliant Supertato books and they created the wonderful Barry the fish with fingers and Norman the slug.

Egg marks a bit of a change of direction for them in its apparent simplicity. Egg is the only word used throughout the book. Yet this is where the brilliance lies. Who knew one word could convey so much? The punctuation determines your intonation as you read, giving each utterance of egg a different meaning. This combined with the terrific pictures, which work so well with the words, allows the book to convey a powerful message about acceptance and inclusion.

The book is about some decorated eggs. One day the arrival of an upside down egg disrupts the uniform world of the other eggs. They tell the odd egg it’s wrong for looking the way it does and they try to correct it. They turn it the other way round and put clothes on it to disguise its topsy-turvy features. Eventually the odd egg has enough and insists that it too is an egg, regardless of its orientation. The odd egg gets all the other eggs bouncing on a trampoline and soon they realise eggs can be any way up and still be eggs.

The illustrations are bright and bold, and the eggs’ faces are full of expression. Children will delight at the humour and fun in the pictures.

The simplicity of the book gave my four-year-old pre-school son the confidence to read the story aloud himself. I found him sharing the book with his friends, happily telling them the story as he turned the pages. It was a very proud mommy moment!

Egg skilfully delivers a powerful and important message to young children about acceptance in a fun and accessible way.

Rating: 💙💙💙💙💙

Suitable for children aged 2+

Thank you to Macmillan Children’s Books for sending me this book to review.