A series of jaw-dropping pop-up spreads present readers with animals and their eggs, and some amazing facts too. Everyone will have their own favourite – the daddy Emperor penguins sheltering eggs and chicks on their feet; the brightly coloured clownfish keeping watch over their babies; the mighty crocodile gently carrying her young down to the river in her mouth. The illustrations and paper engineering are very impressive, and the information they help deliver is fascinating: there’ll be gasps at each turn of the page, time and again.
This dynamic book opens with a familiar and joyful sight - a baby bird hatching from an egg that sits in a nest high on a tree. The following pages hold even more delightful surprises, as each spread opens to reveal a different animal and the kind of egg it comes from.
Did you know that crocodile mothers walk from the shore to the water holding their eggs in their mouths? That emperor penguin fathers keep their eggs warm by balancing them on their feet? Or that the milkweed plant is the only place a monarch butterfly will lay her eggs?
Delicately detailed and boldly coloured, every scene is a work of art that depicts its animal's unique markings and natural habitat. As they pore over each elaborately constructed page, young readers will learn valuable information about how different animals hatch from eggs in the natural world.
Maike Biederstadt is an award-winning paper engineer whose work is featured in Creatures of the Deep (Prestel), which was a finalist for the 2018 Meggendorfer Prize. She lives in Berlin, Germany.