| Product: |
Meg's Eggs - Helen Nicoll |
| Date: |
11/09/07 (94 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Bright illustrations and humour for children.
Disadvantages: None for children... too many speech bubbles for me!
Despite first being published in the 1970s Meg and Mog are still very popular in Early Years settings today. They were first introduced in the book Meg and Mog and since then a number of books have been published about the duo.
- Who are Meg and Mog? -
Meg is a witch, with a typical witchy hooky nose, all dressed in black. She rides on a broom and has a cauldron but her spells always seem to go a little bit wrong!
Mog is Meg's stripy black and white cat. She is very skinny and spiky looking with black eyes and bright yellow 'whites' of her eyes!!
- Meg's Eggs -
The book begins with Mog and Owl waiting at the table for some eggs for supper.
Meg gets out her cauldron and puts in some lizards, newts and frogs to whip up 3 eggs for their supper.
In true fashion, the spell goes a little wrong… they do get 3 eggs but they are enormous, brightly coloured ones and the three friends all jump back in horror as the eggs pop out of the cauldron.
So big and durable are the eggs that they can't break them so off they go to bed without any supper….. in the middle of the night Meg is woken by a cracking noise, the egg is hatching and out comes a Diplodocus who goes to the pond and eats all of the water plants!
A Stegosaurus hatches from Mog's egg who devours 100 cabbages. Finally out pops a Tyrannosaurus Rex from Owl's egg who immediately tries to get Owl in his sharp, sharp teeth!
They are terrified as T-Rex wants to eat all of them so they dash back in to the house and Meg makes a spell….
"Bacon and eggs, jump over their legs.
Those 3 big lumps will be 3 little bumps."
And it works to some degree….
- Illustrations / Illustrator -
Jan Pienkowski was born in Warsaw in 1936 and eventually got to England just after WW2.
Jan has illustrated for a number of authors and was a pioneer of the modern pop-up book.
He has collaborated with Helen Nicoll on all of the Meg and Mog series of books and has his own website at www.janpienkowski.com
The backdrops in this book are NEVER white, Jan Pienkowski uses rich, vibrant colours as backgrounds which really appeals to young children.
Another appealing aspect of the drawings are their simplicity, easy enough for children to re-create their own versions of Meg and Mog.
- Style and Format -
The text is very simple and what I particularly like is the simple font that is used, i.e. no 'squiggly' a's or loopy lettering which is great for emergent readers to decipher.
The text font and size also changes to show loudness etc.
The text is dotted around in different places on each page, e.g. when they go to bed they text goes up the stairs with them and when vice versa when Meg comes down the stairs to see what is happening to her egg.
Some of the text is in speech bubbles, e.g. when they are at the table, owl says "I'm hungry" and Meg says "Where's my egg?" all within speech bubbles.
The text and the illustrations work hand in hand with each other in this book.
There is also opportunity for recognising simple rhyme when Meg makes two spells.
- The Meg and Mog series -
Meg and Mog is also available on audio book cassette
Meg and Mog had an animated tv show and in series 1 there were 19 episodes.
Volume 1 and Volume 2 can be bought from amazon on DVD and VHS tape.
There is also a Meg and Mog copy colouring book full of pictures of their TV adventures designed for colouring in.
Following the huge success of this, the first book in the series, Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski have collaborated on a number of other Meg and Mog books:
* Meg and Mog
* Meg at sea
* Meg on the moon
* Meg's car
* Meg's castle
* Meg's veg
* Mog's mumps
* Mog at the zoo
* Mog in the fog
* Owl at school
David Wood has written a professional stage play, 'The Meg and Mog Show' based on the characters in the series. He has written a series of 4 short plays for children to read and act out. The book includes simple staging and costumes.
~ Price ~
The book is available in the following from amazon:
board book from 67p.... RRP £4.99
paperback from just 1p ... RRP £4.99
hardcover from £5.25
There is also a book and BBC audio CD from £7.19
~ My Verdict ~
The Meg and Mog books aren't my favourite children's books but I'm not typical of the audience that the author is aiming the series at. Most of the children that I have come across love the books and this one is no exception. I have therefore based my rating on what children think of the book.
A fun book for them and particularly of interest for children who have a fascination with dinosaurs!
Summary: Another popular book in the Meg and Mog series
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