The Good Egg by Jory John

Hey, Story Seekers! Today we're meeting an egg who helps people, follows the rules, keeps the peace, does the right thing, and generally works very hard at being...

Good.

Very good.

Verrrrrry good.

And he's exhausted.

The Good Egg, written by Jory John and illustrated by Pete Oswald, is the second book in the Food Group series, after The Bad Seed. This particular egg has a problem that might sound familiar to a few kids. He isn't satisfied with behaving himself. He also feels responsible for everybody else behaving themselves.

That'll wear you out.

Readit has already inspected the other eleven eggs in this carton and would like it officially noted that some of them cannot be trusted.

He's right.

Book Breakdown

The Good Egg has been good for as long as he can remember.

He carries groceries. He paints houses. He changes tires. He rescues cats. He tries to keep everybody happy.

Meanwhile, the other eleven eggs in his carton are not exactly helping his blood pressure.

They skip bedtime. They eat sugary cereal. They break things. They're doing all the things the Good Egg thinks they shouldn't be doing, and he takes it upon himself to keep everybody in line.

There's the problem.

Not the other eggs.

Him.

The Good Egg is so busy worrying about everybody else's behavior and trying to be perfect himself that the pressure starts showing up physically.

His shell cracks.

John takes that wonderfully egg-specific problem and uses it to send the Good Egg away from the carton for a while. Once he's on his own, he starts taking better care of himself. He gets outside. He reads. He rests. He finds things that make him feel calmer.

More importantly, he starts realizing he doesn't have to control everybody around him.

Eventually, he misses the other eggs.

And when he returns, they're still themselves. The big change happened inside the Good Egg. He puts it plainly on the way back: "I'll be good to my fellow eggs while also being good to myself."

That's an important distinction.

Pete Oswald has plenty to do here, because John's joke depends on the contrast between this very serious little egg and the ridiculous world around him. The other eggs misbehave in the background, sometimes doing exactly the kind of goofy stuff kids will notice while the Good Egg is busy worrying. There's a recovery scene with the egg hooked up to an IV bag labeled YOLK, which tells you the register we're working in.

Oswald also gives the Good Egg a terrific face. Eyebrows, glasses, mouth, posture. You can watch this poor guy getting tighter and more stressed before his shell finally starts showing it.

Then the pictures loosen up with him.

There's a lot going on underneath a fairly silly premise, but John never forgets we're reading about a talking egg.

That helps.

For teachers and librarians: Lexile AD510L · ATOS 2.3 · Guided Reading Level L · DRA 20-24 · 542 words · ages 4 to 8, PreK to grade 3. Harper, February 12, 2019. A number one New York Times bestseller and the follow-up to The Bad Seed.

Jungle Jimmy's Journal

I think adults may recognize this egg faster than kids do.

He's the person who isn't simply trying to do the right thing. He wants everybody else to do it, too.

That's a rough job, because nobody actually hired him.

There's a kid version of that, of course. The child who knows the classroom rules and cannot understand why Tyler is apparently living without them. The kid who gets upset when somebody cuts the line, talks when they're not supposed to, or colors the sky green when everybody knows the sky is supposed to be blue.

John gives that feeling somewhere to go.

What I particularly like is that the Good Egg doesn't learn to become a Bad Egg.

He doesn't come home and start throwing cereal around because he's finally loosened up.

He just stops demanding perfection.

That's better.

There's also a nice read-aloud rhythm to John's writing. The Good Egg talks directly to us, the other eggs supply the chaos, and Oswald keeps giving the reader visual jokes to find around the main story.

I'd leave time for those pictures.

That's something adults can forget when they're reading to kids. We finish the sentence and we're ready to turn the page. Meanwhile, the kid beside us is still inspecting the egg doing something ridiculous in the corner.

Wait.

Let them look.

Reader feedback backs that up. Plenty of children get as much fun out of the other eggs' bad behavior as they do out of the main story.

Of course they do.

John is trying to teach them about balance and self-acceptance.

There are eleven eggs behind him eating cereal at midnight.

We know which ones they're looking at.

Readit's Review

I would NOT want to live in that carton.

Some of those eggs are nuts.

But I also think the Good Egg needs to stop watching everybody all the time.

If another egg wants to stay up late eating cereal, that seems like an Other Egg Problem.

My favorite parts were looking at what the bad eggs were doing, because sometimes the Good Egg is talking about how terrible everything is and there's something completely ridiculous happening behind him.

Also, when his head starts cracking, I thought he was going to BREAK.

That would be bad.

Can an egg go to the doctor?

And if an egg cracks, does yolk come out?

Because nobody explained that part.

I did like that when he came back, the other eggs were still weird.

He just wasn't as worried about it.

I think that's probably easier than fixing eleven eggs.

What Others Think

This one has connected with a lot of readers. Goodreads shows 4.34 out of 5 from more than 17,000 ratings, with about 1,600 written reviews. The recurring comments run together: readers recognize themselves in the Good Egg's perfectionism, they enjoy the goofy background behavior of the other eggs, they like Oswald's expressive faces, and they appreciate the idea that being good shouldn't mean carrying everybody else's problems around with you.

Goodreads reviewer Calista read it with a niece and nephew and reported the exact thing I'd predict from a room of kids: "All the eggs in a carton had some funny faces and the niece and nephew laughed and laughed at all the rhyming names."

Not the moral. The names.

Not everybody buys the ending, and the objection is worth hearing. Reviewer Kendall's read is that the book "teaches kids that you don't always have to be perfect, but doesn't teach them that they don't have to put up with being bullied" by the people they call friends.

That's a fair distinction. There's a difference between accepting that people aren't perfect and deciding you should tolerate being treated badly. I don't think John's goofy carton of eggs is trying to take on that bigger question, but if your kid is currently on the wrong end of a friendship, it's worth knowing which conversation you might be starting.

Kirkus was firmly in the positive camp, calling the balance between personal and social responsibility "a seed of a great idea" inside "a rip-roaring, touching narrative," and praising Oswald's artwork for popping "with rib-tickling close-ups and character-building moments." Their verdict line is the best pun in the whole business: "Eggs-quisitely excellent."

So the pattern seems pretty clear.

Adults see perfectionism.

Kids see badly behaved eggs.

Everybody gets something.

Belly Laugh Scale

3 out of 5: Solid Chuckles

There's a steady stream of funny stuff here. Egg puns, ridiculous behavior, expressive faces, and Pete Oswald hiding visual comedy around the pages.

The contrast helps most. The Good Egg is taking everything VERY seriously while his carton mates appear to be operating under entirely different management.

That's funny.

But I'm keeping it at a 3 because the laughs aren't really the destination. They make it easier for John to tell a story about pressure, perfectionism, and giving yourself a break without turning the whole thing into a lecture.

Good choice.

Nobody wants a lecture from an egg.

Final Explorer Verdict

I'd recommend The Good Egg for ages 4 to 8, particularly kids who worry about making mistakes, put a lot of pressure on themselves, or get frustrated when other children don't follow the rules.

It's also a strong classroom read-aloud, because there's plenty to talk about afterward without needing to announce, "And now we shall discuss the message."

Ask kids whether the Good Egg really needed to fix the other eleven eggs.

See where they take it.

And don't rush Pete Oswald's pictures. Some of the funniest stuff in this carton is happening while the Good Egg is busy talking.

If this is your kid's book, it may also be your kid's problem, and I wrote one about it. Petey Perfectpants And The Silly Sock Puppet Problem is about a boy who follows every rule right up until he loses control of his own hand. Same knot, different way of untying it. The Good Egg leaves the carton to loosen up. Petey doesn't get the choice.

The Good Egg wants to be good.

He just has to learn that he doesn't have to be perfect.

And he definitely doesn't have to run the whole carton.

Keep exploring, Story Seekers!

Jungle Jimmy & Readit