The Talking Eggs

Title: The Talking Eggs
Author: Robert D. San Souci
Illustrator: Jerry Pinkney
Publisher and date of Publication: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1989
Genre: Folktale, Traditional Literature, Picture Book
Age Range: K-4th grade
Awards: Caldecott Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Award

Summary: This is a Cinderella version in which Blanche is the sister treated badly and Rose is the spoiled sister. Blanche has to do everything but one day she meets an old lady. She promises the lady that she'll do what she asked and won't make fun of her. Because Blanche followed through, the lady tells her to go out back and pick the eggs that say "take me." She through them over her shoudler like she was asked and they turned into jewels and wonderful dresses. Her jealous sister tries the same thing but doesn't follow orders and ends up with snakes and flying insects.

Response: I didn'r recognize this story when I checked it out from the library but when I started reading it, I realized that I had heard this story before. I think it's wonderful that Blanche got the good stuff and Rose didn't. This would be good to read to children with the moral that if you do that right thing and do what you are asked, you will be rewarded. This story makes you happy that it ended up the way it should because at the beginning, you feel sorry for poor Blanche.

Teaching Ideas: This story has so many ideas to teach with. This could be incoporated in for older children studying the different versions of folktales, mainly Cinderella. At Easter, you may even read this and put "good" and "bad" things in the eggs and give children directions what which eggs to pick to see what they would do. Dress up the "bad" eggs and make the ugly eggs have the "good" things. I would do this before you read the story, so they don't know what you are doing. Children could write what they would have done or a time when they didn't make a good decision.