Lumberjanes – The Good Egg

Mariko Tamaki's The Good Egg is a Lumberjanes adventure for 8 year olds about the smallest scout at camp and the biggest nest in the woods.

What happens

Ripley is the youngest in Roanoke cabin. She has a shock of blue hair, a huge appetite and a habit of singing her news instead of writing it down.

Up a pine tree one morning, she finds a nest as big as a cabin. The eggs in it are as big as she is. All except one. A little golden egg the size of a basketball sits right on the edge, and she names it Eggie.

Of course, when Ripley tries to tell everyone, nobody's really listening. It's clean-up day, and "a nest" keeps turning into "Annette". Being the smallest voice in a busy house is normal for Ripley, and plenty of youngest children will know that feeling.

Then the counsellors make a big announcement. The whole camp is putting on plays! The drama teacher, Miss Annabella Panache, makes her entrance in a spotlight, and April is over the moon.

The story has a narrator who stops to explain things along the way. What a cacophony is. Why "big" depends on what you're comparing it to (especially when cake is being handed out). It's chatty and silly and it bounces along, a bit like Ripley herself.

The cabin is a gang of very different girls. Jo, who reuses everything. April, who writes everything down and underlines it. Molly, whose hat is a raccoon called Bubbles. Mal, who finds a tumbleweed of socks under her bunk. Their friend Barney helps Ripley with an egg rescue involving a wheelbarrow and all those socks.

This is the third Lumberjanes book, and it's Ripley's turn in the spotlight. Eggie doesn't stay safe for long, either. There are egg poachers about who want it for their collection.

If your reader loves animals and would rather have friendship than danger, this is a sweet one. It's about caring for something small, and about getting yourself heard.

What to read next

For more of Roanoke cabin, try Unicorn Power, where the five scouts are out hunting for one last flowering plant to earn a badge.