Just So Stories

CSIRO Publishing

Hardback | April 2025 | $ 26.99
ISBN: 9781486318278

This gorgeous narrative non-fiction book makes me think of my Year 1s, 30 years ago as we had the fun of watching chickens hatch, and frogspawn develop, investigating how life begins for many creatures.

I know there are many ELC and Prep classes that still do this. These especially will love this beautiful book. Author/illustrator Heidi Cooper Smith [whom I will be meeting this evening as I write this 5/06/25!] takes readers through the Australian landscape and shows such a variety of creatures who lay eggs from the small to the larger.

Smalls will see spiders and cicadas, birdwing butterflies and frogmouths, platypuses and echidnas, curlews and crocodiles and many more. All are rendered in the most exquisite lifelike artwork. And, may I just say, that any artist who can make a bush turkey look appealing has real talent! Soft shells, hard shells, round eggs, oval eggs, small eggs, large eggs – they are all here to discover with delight as you peruse page after page.

The back matter has some excellent and easy-to-grasp information both on the animals in focus, plus those incidentally shown (which make for a fun eggy scavenger hunt throughout the book) as well as a definition of what eggs are. There is also a glossary for those subject specific and tricky words. All in all, another terrific CSIRO publication from a talented creator. As always with some teaching notes to help out.

Easy to give this one a 5 🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚 rating for Smalls from around Prep, easily up to Year 5 if this was part of your science UoI.

Egg-cellent Egg-laying Animals WWF Australia