Eggs, 1, 2, 3: Who Will The Babies Be?

by Janet Halfmann, Betsy Thompson (Illustrator)

Ten spreads with gatefolds and a culminating dramatic fold-out lead young readers from a single penguin egg to an ostrich's clutch of 10 eggs. Song-like, non-rhyming verse gives clues as to who might hatch. The answer to the repeated refrain, "Who will the babies be?", is found beneath a flap. Besides discovering the animal baby or babies, kids will also pick up a lot of nature terminology and interesting facts about animals, their birthing environments, and habitats. OUT OF PRINT, BUT AVAILABLE AT THE DIGITAL LIBRARIES EPIC AND K12

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Counting, Nonfiction, Storytime, Science, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Janet Halfmann is a multi-award-winning children’s author who strives to make her books come alive for young readers and listeners. She writes about animals and nature, family and community, and little-known people of achievement. Janet has written almost fifty fiction and nonfiction books for children.

Janet was formerly a daily newspaper reporter, children’s magazine editor, and a creator of coloring and activity books for Golden Books. She has four children, seven grandkids, and two great-grands. Janet enjoys gardening, exploring nature, visiting living-history museums, and spending time with family. She grew up on a farm in MI and now lives in WI. More at: http://www.janethalfmannauthor.com

Reviews

[KC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Counting the eggs and connecting to who lays them. An interactive lift the flaps type book with an interesting illustrated medium.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful counting book with interesting collages made with textured papers and fabrics. Lift flaps to reveal who hatches out of the various eggs.

[Ka Youa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book called Eggs, 1,2,3: Who Will the Babies Be? is a great concept book for teaching counting and naming the different types of eggs for kindergarten. The counting book illustrates amazing pictures of the different kinds of animals that hatch eggs in each page. Children will enjoy lift the flap to see what kind of animal hatches from the eggs.

What makes this book a traditional literature is that it is great for children to count along, guess and learn baby-animal names with the teacher. It is a great book for teacher to read out loud, and children can predict at the same time of each illustration. It's a great predictable pattern that will help readers to join in. The richly textured papers and cut-paper collages is a great way to engage children's learning. I really like the colorful and illustration of this textbook, and I think that children of young ages will definitely love it too. I think that children will enjoy the rhyming text, to guess, "Who will the babies be?"

I think this book is a good text to use when teaching children to make prediction or inferences. Children can use context clues and pictures to make predictions of "Who will the babies be?"

I believe this book is great for kindergarten as they are learning their numbers in the beginning of the school year. It is great for teacher to read as an introduction before a lesson or just read for pleasure time.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was beautiful.

Sweet pictures, each with a third picture hidden beneath. We see eggs, and get to see who hatches! Butterflies, robins, platypus, and more. We count them every time, and go from one penguin to ten ostriches.

There are different facts about the animals slipped into every page... It's such a sweet, beautiful book. I enjoyed looking at it!

On the last page, they have a counting table, with the number of animals around each number, for a quick review! I loved it.

Recommended.

[Roben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to add to a STEAM collection for preK-2nd. All about the different animals that hatch from eggs. Interactivity is a bonus - lift the page to find your answer. The book's pages are a little thicker than regular paper but add some extra tape to the seams to help prevent unwanted tears from occurring.

[Aolund · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good storytime counting book with textural illustrations (cut paper, fabric, stitching, etc), pages that fold up or out to reveal the animal babies inside each set of eggs--which are introduced along with a number 1-10-- and interesting, well-contextualized words great for increasing vocabulary.

Storytime themes: counting, babies, animals, growing, families

[Mely · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a great book idea! makes counting fun and such a variety of animals and insects.

[Tiffany Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book to use in the classroom. It is great to use in a kindergarten class to focus on counting . It is a great introductory to counting in the classroom.

[Rebecca Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great counting book with guessing what animal each egg will hatch. The lift the flaps add a lot of fun to the story!

[Rachael Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork is great and this book will teach some vocabulary - specifically, the names of some baby animals. Lovely for counting.

[Desiree · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great introduction piece to talk to my kindergarten students about animals needs.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for this book about animals that hatch from eggs

[Colette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was my favorite counting book so far. With animals and eggs from nature and Australia from platypus to pollywogs, caterpillars to ostrich, robins to fish, it is as all interesting!

[Casandria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eggs are laid and kids must guess who will be born.
Numbers

[April Voss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eggs 1,2,3: Who Will the Babies Be is a delightful book for young children ages preK-kindergarten. It is bright and vibrant with fun fold out pages hiding what kind of animal is in each egg. It repeats the phrase, "Who will the babies be?" throughout the book which also gets the children involved. It is an educational book for teaching counting and for teaching about animals. The artistic media used is collage which almost gives the book a lifelike quality. The illustrator uses the space well covering the entire book with textures of some type that go along with the animal being discussed on that particular page, it also incorporates a variety of colors that keep the listener interested and uses colors that are fairly realistic. The page turner element is another thing that is used to make this book exciting because the page has to be turned in order to find out what each baby will be. Overall, I think this is a great book for young children to have exposure to. I would read it to preschool age children and keep it on display or on a book shelf for a little older children to read to themselves. Another option for this book would be for students to make their own next page for the book that could be displayed in the classroom.

[Stacie Wyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Eggs, 1, 2, 3, who will the babies be, in exchange for review from Edelweiss. The book was written by Janet Halfmann and Illustrated by Betsy Thompson. The book was published by Blue Apple books. Key selling points from Edelweiss:


Kids are interested in reading about baby animals
Poetic flow and nature facts.
The book teaches kids how to count
The book is interactive
The art and design work is fabolous
The author has wrote over a dozen nature-themed animal books.

The book was a quick read. I loved the artwork and graphics. The book flowed poetically. The first story is on penguins. The penguin family is waiting for their egg to hatch. The book also teaches counting skills, in addition to guessing skills. For example, the section on platypi, only shows the platypus tail. The kids can guess which animal the tail belongs to. Maybe it's a playpus, maybe it's a beaver. Great read.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very clever concept book. I appreciate the design, calm yet appealing illustrations with not too much jazz going on - always welcome in a picture books - some look like old MTV videos all flash and splatter and who can concentrate? Certainly not tots and tired librarians.
This one has another fabulous thing. Sturdy paper. If you are going to have a book with pages that fold out - always thrilling for wee ones at story hour - sturdy paper is essential.
Lastly, this is lovely because it is so thorough. Not only do you get the eggs from which creature guessing game, you get the proper name for the babies, what they eat, environmental info, and additional growing up information all in elegantly spare and efficient language.
Bravo!

[Lynn Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This counting book - from one to 10 - features eggs. The reader gets to guess whose eggs they are, what babies will come out of them. An egg is shown, and the baby is revealed on a fold out page. Example: “three eggs, tiny jewels, laid by a fluttery mom on tasty plants of green.” The photo page on one side shows eggs on a leaf and on the other side are caterpillars and Monarch butterflies. “3 creeping caterpillars, munching, munching, munching, then changing into butterflies.” One side of the last photo page shows the eggs and names who they are – snake, penguin, glowworm, platypus, and five more. On the other side, it shows the eggs and the babies that hatched out of them. Science, arithmetic, and fun in great illustrations.

[Habrewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eggs 1,2 3: Who Will the Babies Be? by Janet Halfman
Release Date – April 10, 2012
*A review copy of this book was viewed from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review*

This book is a fun book that teaches children not only about counting but about animals and their young. The pictures are bright and colorful and lots of fun. The repetition of the phrase “Who will the babies be?” helps get the children involved in the story as it progresses.

This book is a good teaching tool on several levels and could be enjoyed by children ages 2+. Lilly enjoyed the animals in this book and trying to figure out the babies.

Overall we give Eggs 1,2,3: Who Will the Babies Be? 4 stars.

[Gaele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that will frequently be read and played with. Covering the numbers 1 - 10 with flip-out pages to show the babies hidden within the eggs, the beautiful illustrations of the animals that hatch out, familiar and not so.

Simple and repetitive phrasing form a simple sing-song like melody that will appeal to young readers / listeners, and as they familiarize themselves with the story, there are easy words to pick out that can provide opportunity for games and interaction.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

[Carla Pelayo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully constructed, this interactive counting book is both entertaining and educational. Readers are delighted to open the flaps of the book, learning not only to count, but to visually interpret what eggs and babies of different animals and reptiles look like. Halfmann's collage illustrations and the texture of the pages convey nature and allow readers to easily count and identify nature's surprises. This book could easily be used in an early elementary classroom to supplement a math and science lesson.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I was slightly worried that this book would be kind of young for my fairly old (I have mostly 4 and 5 year-olds) preschool group, but they actually really loved it. There is something compulsive about guessing games for little kids, and they LOVED shouting out what they thought would be in the eggs. The papercut illustrations are great for large groups, because they are really clear from far away. I think this would be amazing for a toddler story time too. I used it in an egg story time.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book for counting/nature/science storytime for preschoolers.

Introduces a lot of info in a very short text -- size of egg, color, environment (in the sand; on a big blue sea; in shimmering jelly, floating on the pond) and name of the young that emerge from the eggs. Some are familiar, like hatchlings and chicks, others are new, like platypus puggles.

Lift the flap quality -- who will the babies be? must lift each time to see. Variety -- for the butterflies and fireflies it lifts up.

I love the really thick paper.

[Miss Pippi the Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a counting book with non-fiction themes. It's also a lift-the-flap book! The collage illustrations are simple and beautiful giving the book a natural, homey feel. (2013 - 4 stars)

2023 storytime theme: eggs
This book went over okay during storytime. Might have been too long? Not enough of a picture hint for the kids to see/understand? A nice variety of egg critters. I also appreciated all the counting - first counting the eggs and then they added a page for counting all the babies. Clever and making the book complete. (2023 - 3 stars)

Reviewed from a library copy.

[Rebecca Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Halfmann's picture book is nature-based. This picture book is for children who are learning to count. It also teaches children about animals and their babies. This book is a good teaching tool because it has fun and lively pictures which keep children engaged. Also, because of repetition children are more likely to memorize the numbers and the various facts about animals found within the book. The repeated saying "Who will their babies be?" is seen beneath each flap. Younger children will be able to follow along easier because of the repetition found within the picture book.

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful illustrations - I particularly enjoyed the colors and textures. I don't love fold out pages, as they don't last long as library books, but they work here.

This would make a GREAT book for sharing one on one or in a small quiet group. Even though the book is relatively short, the language is rich, and it's fun to guess what kind of babies will come out of the eggs. Granted, the first one is pretty easy, but others are harder.

[Laura Salas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a terrific storytime nonfiction book. Each spread describes and shows the eggs and asks "Who will the babies be?" (kids will be chiming in after the second spread). Then you open a gatefold that reveals the babies. Wonderful language makes this a delight to read aloud.

Nine eggs, round and black,

9

safe in shimmering jelly, floating on the pond.

Who will the babies be?

9 frog tadpoles,
breathing with feathery gills
and swishing finny tails.

Beautiful!

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

You might think the 1,2,3 concept book has been "done" and there's no need for more. And you would be wrong. This deceptively simple book is a 1,2,3 concept book, a concept book about the many different creatures that hatch from eggs (including the platypus!), and a concept book about what different animal babies are called. And yet, it's a great read aloud to preschoolers. Soft illustrations--collage style--are a perfect complement. Note the endpapers!

[Jeanne Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each two-page spread show an egg/eggs and asks the question--Who will the babies be? The answer is under the flap. Penguin, platypus, butterflies, robins, etc. The text is simple and informative, uses the correct terminology (e.g., platypus babies are puggles). Visually interesting, but simple illustrations. This is a perfect lap book for practicing counting and learning about baby animals. In a classroom, I would pair this with Ruth Heller's, Chickens Aren't the Only Ones.

[Lynn Plourde · Rating 5 out of 5]

This picture book packs so much into its pages. It's a young SCIENCE text as it tells about different animals that lay eggs. It's a RIDDLE book as kids are invited to guess each animal hidden behind the lift-the-flaps. It's a COUNTING book from 1-10 as kids count the eggs in each illustration. It's an ART book with its gorgeous, textured collage illustrations. So cleverly designed. Picture book perfection!