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The Egg
Families come in all shapes and sizes!
When an egg falls from its nest and is washed away, a grieving crane takes flight, only to find another egg in need of a home. The hatchling that emerges is...a surprise! No matter: the crane is delighted and showers the little one with love.
This fresh, wordless tale celebrates the diversity of families and the bonds of love that hold us tight.
When an egg falls from its nest and is washed away, a grieving crane takes flight, only to find another egg in need of a home. The hatchling that emerges is...a surprise! No matter: the crane is delighted and showers the little one with love.
This fresh, wordless tale celebrates the diversity of families and the bonds of love that hold us tight.
40 pages, Hardcover
Published August 15, 2020
1 person is currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Geraldo Valério
50 books15 followersGeraldo Valerio’s work as an author and illustrator has been published in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Portugal, France, the United Kingdom and China.
Geraldo lives in Toronto, Canada. He attended university in Brazil, receiving a bachelor’s degree in drawing from Federal University of Minas Gerais. He earned a Master of Arts degree from New York University in 2000.
Geraldo lives in Toronto, Canada. He attended university in Brazil, receiving a bachelor’s degree in drawing from Federal University of Minas Gerais. He earned a Master of Arts degree from New York University in 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
July 12, 2020
This is one of those books that leaves you scratching your head. Not because it's difficult to understand... but because you're just not quite sure what to make of it.
In wordless paper collage, The Egg tells the story of a large bird who loses an egg during a storm. While searching, they find something that looks like their egg... but which actually turns out to be a swaddled baby. Undeterred, the bird raises the human baby as their own.
That's all weird enough, but in the final pages, we see all kinds of birds with their adopted children: a toucan with a rabbit (or maybe it's an aardvark); a flamingo with a little girl; a parrot with a pig; and, rather hilariously, a pelican with a goldfish (in a bowl). I'm not sure what the reader is supposed to take from this. Birds are kidnappers? The "families come in all shapes and sizes" message is almost obscured by the absurdity of the pairings.
No matter. This is probably one of those books that you'll either love or roll your eyes at. It does manage to tell the story clearly without any words at all, which I admire. And the cut-paper illustrations are fun to look at. Overall, this is a strange little book... but one that I'm sure has an audience somewhere.
Thank you to NetGalley and Owlkids Books for providing a digital ARC.
In wordless paper collage, The Egg tells the story of a large bird who loses an egg during a storm. While searching, they find something that looks like their egg... but which actually turns out to be a swaddled baby. Undeterred, the bird raises the human baby as their own.
That's all weird enough, but in the final pages, we see all kinds of birds with their adopted children: a toucan with a rabbit (or maybe it's an aardvark); a flamingo with a little girl; a parrot with a pig; and, rather hilariously, a pelican with a goldfish (in a bowl). I'm not sure what the reader is supposed to take from this. Birds are kidnappers? The "families come in all shapes and sizes" message is almost obscured by the absurdity of the pairings.
No matter. This is probably one of those books that you'll either love or roll your eyes at. It does manage to tell the story clearly without any words at all, which I admire. And the cut-paper illustrations are fun to look at. Overall, this is a strange little book... but one that I'm sure has an audience somewhere.
Thank you to NetGalley and Owlkids Books for providing a digital ARC.
March 30, 2020
A wordless book that's obviously all about the art but didn't get to me. It look like the illustrations might have some kind of texture, I'm not sure having read it in a ebook format, maybe the physical copy would be more interesting, but even with that, just not much emotion, perspective or beauty to it in my opinion!
December 3, 2020
I LOVED the illustrations and artwork. The story was kind of cool, but also kind of confusing.
May 11, 2020
This is a wordless picture book that allows imagination and conversation to flow. The story opens with a beautiful crane sitting in her nest protecting her beloved egg. She has a very happy look of contentment on her face. A vicious act of nature arrives that changes her world completely leaving her distraught with grief. Her solitary egg is blown away.
The heartbroken crane searches everywhere for her precious egg but it cannot be found. In her desperate search she stumbles upon another lonesome egg that is abandoned. Although it's not hers she rescues it and tends to it like it is.
What hatches is a great surprise to her and to the reader. Whatever can it be? Will she adopt it and they become a family unit regardless of their differences? When they finally fledge together they encounter other birds transporting a diverse variety babies pointing out that families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes all held together by the strong bonds of love.
The paper-cut illustrations are colourful, whimsical and full of emotions. The wordless book gives opportunity for oral vocabulary building, contextual skills, and predictions. I highly recommend it.
The heartbroken crane searches everywhere for her precious egg but it cannot be found. In her desperate search she stumbles upon another lonesome egg that is abandoned. Although it's not hers she rescues it and tends to it like it is.
What hatches is a great surprise to her and to the reader. Whatever can it be? Will she adopt it and they become a family unit regardless of their differences? When they finally fledge together they encounter other birds transporting a diverse variety babies pointing out that families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes all held together by the strong bonds of love.
The paper-cut illustrations are colourful, whimsical and full of emotions. The wordless book gives opportunity for oral vocabulary building, contextual skills, and predictions. I highly recommend it.
December 17, 2020
The collage art is the star of this wordless book.
With an important theme (families come in all shapes and sizes), this simple story has a mother bird lose her only egg during a storm, sugar the loss, then locate and adopt a different, abandoned egg. It quickly hatches into a human baby, but is loved and protected. Soon the bird sees a wide range of unexpected matches of birds and baby creatures, most of which do NOT hatch from eggs outside the body.
Even so, some eventual discussions of animal life originating in eggs, in one way or another, could justify this colorful and fun approach to the topic of family compositions. I am expecting as many questions about what happened to the originally lost egg as to the egg-human, since none of the mismatched offspring resemble the featured stork-like bird who is the center of the story.
The art is likely to inspire young creators, the questions are worthy ones, and the laughs are guaranteed.
With an important theme (families come in all shapes and sizes), this simple story has a mother bird lose her only egg during a storm, sugar the loss, then locate and adopt a different, abandoned egg. It quickly hatches into a human baby, but is loved and protected. Soon the bird sees a wide range of unexpected matches of birds and baby creatures, most of which do NOT hatch from eggs outside the body.
Even so, some eventual discussions of animal life originating in eggs, in one way or another, could justify this colorful and fun approach to the topic of family compositions. I am expecting as many questions about what happened to the originally lost egg as to the egg-human, since none of the mismatched offspring resemble the featured stork-like bird who is the center of the story.
The art is likely to inspire young creators, the questions are worthy ones, and the laughs are guaranteed.
December 31, 2020
I'm on the fence about this book a little. On one hand, this story is meant to be about mixed families that love each other even if they are not related--and it doesn't super succeed at this. This is because that bird STOLE A BABY and abandoned its own egg to a likely death. But I really love that idea. I also laughed looking at all the other birds with mismatched children because I thought it was about how stupid those birds were, that they're all just stealing babies all over the place. I thought it was funny. Read the blurb after reading the book and went, "Oh! Not at all!"
So, I still recommend it as a story about a bird that steals someone's goddamn baby and how all birds are brainless child-snatchers. The illustrations are very expressive, and no matter how you interpret the story there will be lots to talk about.
So, I still recommend it as a story about a bird that steals someone's goddamn baby and how all birds are brainless child-snatchers. The illustrations are very expressive, and no matter how you interpret the story there will be lots to talk about.
April 10, 2020
The first thing that you (or a child) will notice is that this book contains not a single word of text. The pictures tell the story and convey both what is happening and the emotions of the characters.
This is a tale about becoming a family and how a family may not always look as we expect. The crane is caring for an egg; the bird is upset when the egg falls out of the nest...a spoiler (the egg survives). Enjoy the surprise of seeing whohatches and the relationship that ensues.
I like that this book has no text. Because of this a child and adult can tell the story and talk about it.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.
This is a tale about becoming a family and how a family may not always look as we expect. The crane is caring for an egg; the bird is upset when the egg falls out of the nest...a spoiler (the egg survives). Enjoy the surprise of seeing whohatches and the relationship that ensues.
I like that this book has no text. Because of this a child and adult can tell the story and talk about it.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.
March 19, 2021
Familial love has the unending ability of traversing all differences and The Egg celebrates just that. When a mother stork loses her egg to a storm she flies out in a desperate search for it. Finally she happens upon an one with the same colouring but soon discovers that it is not her biological chick at all but a tiny human baby. Her instinct is to love and feed this human chick and a permanent bond is created.
Entirely wordless save for the title, Valério conjures up a range of emotions in just a single strip of cut paper. He closes this picturebook with a sky full of birds each carrying their adoptive baby with a happy pelican even carrying a goldfish bowl. Love and care transcends all differences.
Entirely wordless save for the title, Valério conjures up a range of emotions in just a single strip of cut paper. He closes this picturebook with a sky full of birds each carrying their adoptive baby with a happy pelican even carrying a goldfish bowl. Love and care transcends all differences.
April 1, 2020
As a teacher, The Egg is a wordless story making it an opportunity to build on a reader's contextual skills and prediction and conferencing abilities. This lends itself to describing, inventing, and creating as each page is turned. For the youngest reader, the story tells itself in expressive faces that convey emotion without a single line of text. The story pushes the outside edge of believability, but in a way that is charming rather than outlandish. Young children will be delighted by what hatches out of this egg!
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this digital ARC in return for a fair and honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this digital ARC in return for a fair and honest review.
April 5, 2021
This wordless book shows a mother bird whose dotted egg is blown out of the nest in a storm. She then rescues a different egg, which turns out to hold a human baby. She feeds it bird food and it thrives. Other birds also appear to have raised different species and everyone seems happy in the end.
BUT what happened to the original lost egg? This was the burning question with the preschoolers who "read" these illustrations. They were also concerned about feeding a human baby cherries with the stems attached. Overall, the book left children frustrated.
A writing assignment could be devised to tell the fate of the dotted egg.
BUT what happened to the original lost egg? This was the burning question with the preschoolers who "read" these illustrations. They were also concerned about feeding a human baby cherries with the stems attached. Overall, the book left children frustrated.
A writing assignment could be devised to tell the fate of the dotted egg.
May 3, 2022
This review is being used for class ELED 460.
The Egg is a 2020 book written and illustrated by Geraldo Valério. The book was published by Owlkids Books and has 40 pages. The book falls within the fiction genre!
The Egg is a book about unlikely family, at its core. The beginning of the book shows a mama bird with her egg, protecting it as she sleeps. The bird's nest falls in a storm, and the mama bird loses her precious baby. As she cries, she finds another egg-shaped object and brings it back to her nest-hoping for her baby. She opens it to reveal a human baby! Very similar to the plot of Tarzan, the human baby and the bird mama enjoy their little life together.
This book uses collage as the illustrative form, and it is incredibly beautiful! The style is simple, yet effective, and has a really fun child-like feel to it.
The Egg is a 2020 book written and illustrated by Geraldo Valério. The book was published by Owlkids Books and has 40 pages. The book falls within the fiction genre!
The Egg is a book about unlikely family, at its core. The beginning of the book shows a mama bird with her egg, protecting it as she sleeps. The bird's nest falls in a storm, and the mama bird loses her precious baby. As she cries, she finds another egg-shaped object and brings it back to her nest-hoping for her baby. She opens it to reveal a human baby! Very similar to the plot of Tarzan, the human baby and the bird mama enjoy their little life together.
This book uses collage as the illustrative form, and it is incredibly beautiful! The style is simple, yet effective, and has a really fun child-like feel to it.
November 13, 2020
Whoever wrote the marketing for this book did it a real disservice when they called this bird a crane. Based on the red beak and feet and black wingtips it's obviously a white stork and the joke is that it gets a baby instead of bringing one? People are very confused in the reviews. I love it and I also always love papercut illustrations.
Ringed white stork from wikipedia:
Ringed white stork from wikipedia:
April 2, 2020
The Egg is a wordless story about a crane and a child. They become an unusual, and beautiful family.
As an educator, this book would be great for helping students develop inference and prediction skills. The beautiful illustrations lend themselves to students using describing skills. The wordless story will help students improve their narrative skills by putting the story into their own words.
Thank you to OwlKids and NetGalley for the ARC of this book to review.
As an educator, this book would be great for helping students develop inference and prediction skills. The beautiful illustrations lend themselves to students using describing skills. The wordless story will help students improve their narrative skills by putting the story into their own words.
Thank you to OwlKids and NetGalley for the ARC of this book to review.
June 24, 2020
This wordless picture book is very sweet. A crane has an egg,but a storm causes the egg to be lost. The crane goes out seeking her egg and comes back with a very colorful one. But it’s not a crane egg. It’s a baby. The baby is raised by the crane and has a grand time. I read this book as a digital galley and that was not the greatest, but I love the art work and can not wait to see the real thing in print.
October 16, 2020
Although the book didn't download in or order in my Kindle, I got the gist of the tale and it was lovely! A bird loses it's egg during a storm, grieves, finds another egg and hatches a baby human! I love the illustrations, they appear to be paper cuttings and are beautiful. I love all the other birds with their assorted babies- piggy, fish in a bowl, a cat, other children... The message wonderful!
I received a Kindle arc from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
I received a Kindle arc from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
October 26, 2020
The Egg is a lovely picture book for young children without text.
The pictures are cute and might capture the imagination of some children. Mine really enjoy having a story so I had to make it up as we went, ask questions to them, point things out in the picture. For this kind of activity I usually prefer a more elaborate illustration style, where their is a lot of things to discover together. As it was the book is flicked through very rapidly.
The pictures are cute and might capture the imagination of some children. Mine really enjoy having a story so I had to make it up as we went, ask questions to them, point things out in the picture. For this kind of activity I usually prefer a more elaborate illustration style, where their is a lot of things to discover together. As it was the book is flicked through very rapidly.
February 18, 2021
Wordless book they’re not my favorite. There is a lot left open to interpretation on these, which is good for young non-readers. They can look at the pictures and tell the story themselves. I actually looked through the book and didn’t pick up on the loss of the egg in the first part. I actually had to go back and look at the front flap.
The illustrations are really great, they seem to involve paper cutting and folding.
The illustrations are really great, they seem to involve paper cutting and folding.
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June 28, 2023I guess I'm not the intended audience. I can imagine the appeal, and I do see the expression of the theme, but I'm too literal. And hey, what happened to that first egg? Apparently it just died? Apparently none of the other adopting birds found it, as there's no B&W fledgling depicted in the climactic pages.
Can't rate. Do not recommend.
Can't rate. Do not recommend.
April 11, 2020
The Egg was a beautiful wordless picture book about loving, caring families that don't always look exactly the same. Families come in all shapes and sizes. There are so many opportunities for learning and activities.
April 20, 2020
I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I loved this book about how families are all different and come in various shapes and sizes. Excellent illustrations are a great addition too.
June 6, 2020
Love the illustrations in this wordless picture book. I'm a sucker for found family and representation of all the diverse family units out there. Being wordless, this book leaves a lot of room for kids to tell the story and for it to become a conversation.
October 14, 2020
I'm not a huge fan of the art style. I also was sad that the egg apparently got smashed. It was nice that the bird found another egg/baby to raise, but it's also just weird to have such bizarre families. I get the point of the book, but it's still bizarre.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 22, 2021
I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I guess I just don’t understand wordless books. I suppose you can make up your own words for the story, but it just isn’t my thing. The pictures were unique and bright.
I guess I just don’t understand wordless books. I suppose you can make up your own words for the story, but it just isn’t my thing. The pictures were unique and bright.
November 25, 2025
A wordless picture book! I think these stories are great for having a discussion about what is going on and students can really have any idea they want based on what they are seeing. Could talk about what happened to the egg.
April 6, 2020
I could not follow the book at all. It had a uniqueness in the way the illustrations were presented in the form of paper cut outs, but they were very busy and odd. Not a fan.
August 31, 2020
What happened to the crane's egg?! It's nice that the crane formed a new family, but they seem awfully chill about losing their own child.
Want to read
September 1, 2020Whatever
September 9, 2020
Good cut-out illustrations. Wordless story was decidedly odd.
September 25, 2020
Not for me
October 2, 2020
Strange concept but quite original, which always gets points in my book. Lovely, lovely cut paper (appearing) illustrations. This time, the stork gets to keep the baby!! IT'S ABOUT TIME
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews