Review - Whose Egg?

Whose Egg?
by Lynette Evans
illustrated by Guy Troughton
Date: 2013
Publisher: Insight Kids
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book non-fiction
Pages: 36
Format: e-book
Source: library

Does the egg lying in the golden sand belong to a penguin or a turtle, a snake or a butterfly? Use what you already know about animals and their environments along with the illustrative evidence that Guy Troughton provides to sleuth around and predict which animal will hatch from which egg.

Let Whose Egg? aid the imagination in visualizing everything from emerald green eggs to those that house “scaly claws” and “snapping jaws.” Kids will love opening up the flaps and discovering what type of animal belongs to each egg.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

With absolutely gorgeous illustrations, this could've been a really strong picture book. Unfortunately, the writing lets it down.

The main problem with this book is that it's not specific enough. Only the birds are really differentiated. We have "emu" and "penguin" and "plover". But for the other creatures? We get generic words like "snake" and "butterfly" and "turtle", when it's obvious in some cases that these are specific species (e.g., the butterfly is clearly a monarch). So why doesn't the book use the specific terminology?

This book is probably more fun in the original lift-the-flap version, too. I read it as an e-book, and it's pretty much a straight picture book. There's nothing wrong with it like this, but lifting the flaps probably adds an element of fun.

So... five stars for the pictures, but the rest of the book leaves something to be desired. It might work for very young children, but even then, some of them probably already know that there's more than one kind of snake, butterfly, turtle, etc.

Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 5/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3.33 out of 5