Hunwigs Egg

Mem Fox
Pamela Lofts
Harcourt Inc, 2005
Fiction, Animal, Friendships
Ages 3-7

Hunwick is a a bandicoot that lives at the edge of a big and dusty desert. One day there is a big and strong storm that happened in the desert. After the storm had passed there appeared an egg next to Hunwicks burrow. He asked all his neighbors if they knew what kind of egg it could be, alas no one knew. Hunwick decided that he was going to give it a home, so he took it to his burrow and made it all nice and cozy in it. He told the egg that it would be safe with Hunwick down in the burrow, he wondered what would would happen when and if the egg hatched. Every evening before he left to go and find something to eat he would cover the egg with twigs and then he waved goodbye to the egg, even though it never waved back, and "neither did it hatch". One night Hunwick mustered up the courage to tell the egg that he was very fond of it, but yet again the egg gave no reply and still it did not hatch. Hunwick and the egg would sit out under the moon light and he would tell it stories and the egg listened is silence, still it did not hatch. Hunwick would hold the egg close at night when they slept, they were always there for each other but STILL it did not hatch. Everyone began to wonder if it would ever hatch but Hunwick did not care, he had already come to the conclusion that it was not an egg but a stone that was in the exact shape of an egg. Hunwick loved the egg and it remained as his friend forever.

This is an excellent book to show how no matter what everyone else thinks about something you are fond of you should not worry but continue to be friends with whatever it happens to be. Hunwick did not care if it was an egg, the "egg" was always there for him and that was all he needed. One could use this when they are doing friendship section with the class, it would more than likely need other books to go along with the friendship unit. Another activity that would be quite interesting for the class to do was to try and find out what a bandicoot was, since we do not have them here in the USA, it is a native animal to Australia. The explanation that is in the back of the book describes the bandicoot as a bilby that is also knows as a rabbit-eared bandicoot, it is an endangered species. Also with this activity you could expand it beyond just the bandicoot and the class research other endangered species, it could also be restricted to just Australia or it could include all endangered species. The illustrations are basically in one page format, although there are illustrations are both pages. The illustrations flow but they are not necessarily running together in what would be considered a two page format. They are done in watercolor pencil on Fabriano Cotton watercolor paper. As I said this is an excellent book to use in the classroom.