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Eggday
Dora the duck has decided to hold a best egg competition. Pogson the pig, Humphrey the horse and Gideon the goat all want to enter, but however hard they try they can't lay an egg!Hetty the hen comes to their rescue with an egg for each of them, but when "Eggday" arrives and the animals turn up with their decorated eggs, Dora surprises them all!
Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
24 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Dunbar
156 books22 followersJoyce Dunbar is an English author of over seventy children’s books, best known for Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go To Sleep, This Is The Star, and the Mouse and Mole series. Born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, she studied English at Goldsmiths College before teaching drama until hearing loss led her to write full time in 1989. Her first children’s book appeared when she was 35, followed by works such as Mundo and the Weather-Child, which explored the experiences of a deaf child and earned critical recognition. Her stories have been adapted for stage, television, and interactive media, with Mouse and Mole becoming a 26-part animated series. She has also been an advocate for deaf awareness, cycling across Cuba for charity. Dunbar lives in Norwich.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 28, 2022
EggdayJoyce Dunbar
I don’t know which of us loved the Scholastic Book Fairs that came to my kids’ elementary school more — them or me. The rule was that I would buy books, but they had to buy any of the other things Scholastic sells, like toys, posters, and stuffed animals. One fine fall day my daughter picked Eggday by Joyce Dunbar, illustrated by Jane Cabrera. I’d never heard of it. I’ve never heard anything about it since. On Amazon, the hardcover price is lower than the paperback version. We may be the only family that loved it. But oh, how we loved it.
One reason my daughter loved the book was its artwork. Kirkus Review covered Eggday and said this about Jane Cabrera’s illustrations: “Cabrera transforms the farmyard plot with a pleasingly free-form style and candy-bright colors. Every page bristles with color; brush strokes, dots, blots, and thumbprints create multi-layered scenes that fairly sing.” Cabrera lives in the UK and has illustrated dozens of children’s books.Eggday
The second reason I chose the book is because it’s funny. That’s why we read it over and over. We laughed when the pig, the horse, and the goat try to lay eggs. We even tried to imitate the “truly dreadful noise” they make: “Oink! Oink! Oink!” “Neigh! Neigh! Neigh!” “Bl-a-a-a! Bl-a-a-a! Bl-a-a-a!” Although it’s the dramatic, inspirational stories that win the awards and attract the think-pieces, humor is hard. Actors know this. It’s much easier to get an audience to cry than to laugh.
Eggday is “a best egg competition” announced by Dora the Duck. She asks the pig, the horse, and the goat to each bring an egg: “a pig egg,” “a horse egg,” and “a goat egg.” This book scrupulously follows the rule of three, not only with three main characters, but also much of the text happens in threes, as with the animal sounds.
Then we get a little vocabulary lesson. Hetty the Hen points out that not only are pigs, horses, and goats incapable of laying eggs, but this pig, this horse, and this goat are all dudes. Babies only come from sows, mares, nanny goats, so these fellas are out of luck. Moreover, the offspring of pigs, horses, and goats are not eggs — they are piglets, foals, and kids (respectively).
Armed with precise vocabulary, Pogson the pig, Humphrey the horse, and Gideon the goat now know they cannot lay eggs for the Eggday competition. Enter Hetty the Hen again, who saves the day by teaching these critters how they can decorate an egg to look like, well, what a pig egg, a horse egg, and a goat egg might look like. How do they pull off this feat? Who knows? Who cares? The resulting eggs look delightful.
Hetty lays a “beautiful, smooth, speckled egg.” Woe is me — I’ve spent too much time with store-perfect eggs. The book ends with a surprise. It’s one a watchful child with even a cursory understanding of barnyard reproduction can see coming. And isn’t it fun when you figure out the surprise before turning the final page?
Joyce Dunbar is a British writer who has published more than 80 children’s books. She’s taught English classes, drama classes (especially Shakespeare), and workshops for playwrights. She has written a couple of series: Panda & Gander and Mouse and Mole, which was adapted as a Christmas video. She’s best known for a book called Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep. She started going deaf at the age of 5 and is such a good lip-reader that most people don’t realize she is deaf.
In an interview with author Aileen Stewart, Dunbar says, “Deafness is very limiting in all sorts of ways — mainly the phone — but it gives you a unique angle which is very good for writers. Thank goodness for e-mail!”
Knowing that Dunbar is deaf, I re-read the book in a whole new way. I read it as if the pig, the horse, and the goat had a disability. I realize that word, especially in the context of deafness — which has its own language and culture — is controversial, but I use it because Dunbar’s opinion on the subject of disability in children’s literature is often sought. Of course, Pogson, Humphrey, and Gideon aren’t disabled. They’re just made differently than Hetty the Hen and Dora the Duck.
Which is the point. Each animal does what it can and does it well. What starts as a competition ends as a celebration.
On the Q&A section of Dunbar’s website, she says, “Some of my funniest, lightest stories have come out of the most difficult things in my life. So everything that happens — or almost everything — is useful. If you haven’t got a problem, you haven’t got a story.”
In Eggday, Pogson the pig, Humphrey the horse, and Gideon the goat have a problem. The rest of us have a story.
I don’t know which of us loved the Scholastic Book Fairs that came to my kids’ elementary school more — them or me. The rule was that I would buy books, but they had to buy any of the other things Scholastic sells, like toys, posters, and stuffed animals. One fine fall day my daughter picked Eggday by Joyce Dunbar, illustrated by Jane Cabrera. I’d never heard of it. I’ve never heard anything about it since. On Amazon, the hardcover price is lower than the paperback version. We may be the only family that loved it. But oh, how we loved it.
One reason my daughter loved the book was its artwork. Kirkus Review covered Eggday and said this about Jane Cabrera’s illustrations: “Cabrera transforms the farmyard plot with a pleasingly free-form style and candy-bright colors. Every page bristles with color; brush strokes, dots, blots, and thumbprints create multi-layered scenes that fairly sing.” Cabrera lives in the UK and has illustrated dozens of children’s books.Eggday
The second reason I chose the book is because it’s funny. That’s why we read it over and over. We laughed when the pig, the horse, and the goat try to lay eggs. We even tried to imitate the “truly dreadful noise” they make: “Oink! Oink! Oink!” “Neigh! Neigh! Neigh!” “Bl-a-a-a! Bl-a-a-a! Bl-a-a-a!” Although it’s the dramatic, inspirational stories that win the awards and attract the think-pieces, humor is hard. Actors know this. It’s much easier to get an audience to cry than to laugh.
Eggday is “a best egg competition” announced by Dora the Duck. She asks the pig, the horse, and the goat to each bring an egg: “a pig egg,” “a horse egg,” and “a goat egg.” This book scrupulously follows the rule of three, not only with three main characters, but also much of the text happens in threes, as with the animal sounds.
Then we get a little vocabulary lesson. Hetty the Hen points out that not only are pigs, horses, and goats incapable of laying eggs, but this pig, this horse, and this goat are all dudes. Babies only come from sows, mares, nanny goats, so these fellas are out of luck. Moreover, the offspring of pigs, horses, and goats are not eggs — they are piglets, foals, and kids (respectively).
Armed with precise vocabulary, Pogson the pig, Humphrey the horse, and Gideon the goat now know they cannot lay eggs for the Eggday competition. Enter Hetty the Hen again, who saves the day by teaching these critters how they can decorate an egg to look like, well, what a pig egg, a horse egg, and a goat egg might look like. How do they pull off this feat? Who knows? Who cares? The resulting eggs look delightful.
Hetty lays a “beautiful, smooth, speckled egg.” Woe is me — I’ve spent too much time with store-perfect eggs. The book ends with a surprise. It’s one a watchful child with even a cursory understanding of barnyard reproduction can see coming. And isn’t it fun when you figure out the surprise before turning the final page?
Joyce Dunbar is a British writer who has published more than 80 children’s books. She’s taught English classes, drama classes (especially Shakespeare), and workshops for playwrights. She has written a couple of series: Panda & Gander and Mouse and Mole, which was adapted as a Christmas video. She’s best known for a book called Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep. She started going deaf at the age of 5 and is such a good lip-reader that most people don’t realize she is deaf.
In an interview with author Aileen Stewart, Dunbar says, “Deafness is very limiting in all sorts of ways — mainly the phone — but it gives you a unique angle which is very good for writers. Thank goodness for e-mail!”
Knowing that Dunbar is deaf, I re-read the book in a whole new way. I read it as if the pig, the horse, and the goat had a disability. I realize that word, especially in the context of deafness — which has its own language and culture — is controversial, but I use it because Dunbar’s opinion on the subject of disability in children’s literature is often sought. Of course, Pogson, Humphrey, and Gideon aren’t disabled. They’re just made differently than Hetty the Hen and Dora the Duck.
Which is the point. Each animal does what it can and does it well. What starts as a competition ends as a celebration.
On the Q&A section of Dunbar’s website, she says, “Some of my funniest, lightest stories have come out of the most difficult things in my life. So everything that happens — or almost everything — is useful. If you haven’t got a problem, you haven’t got a story.”
In Eggday, Pogson the pig, Humphrey the horse, and Gideon the goat have a problem. The rest of us have a story.
February 25, 2020
This is a really cute kids story. This book is about a bunch of animals participating in Eggday. Great illustrations and great plot.
March 23, 2012
Eggday is an easy to read story for younger children. It offers prediction and repetition so that the children can engage themselves in the story.
September 16, 2012
Picture book
April 25, 2012
Again, I wasn't bowled over by how amazing this book is but JUNI LOVES IT.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews