Title: Hunwick’s Egg
Author: Mem Fox
Illustrated by: Pamela Lofts
Publisher: Penguin Books Australia Ltd
ISBN: 9780670042302
Themes: Hope, Joy, Easter, Christmas, Preparation, Expectation, Community
Once upon a time, at the edge of a wide and dusty desert, there lived an old Bilby. His name was Hunwick. After a huge storm turned the world upside down and threw everything around Hunwich finds a beautiful looking egg close to his burrow, and, after the search to find it’s owner fails Hunwick decides to look after the egg all by himself.
“You’ll be safe with me thinks Hunwick and goes ahead with making room for the egg in his burrow and starts to think about what might lay ahead of him when the egg hatches. Over time Hunwick continues to look after the egg, and talk to it, tell it stories in the moonlight, sleep by it’s side and share his troubles with it.
All that time and the egg said nothing, neither did it hatch.
As time went by his neighbours, the animals of the bush all start to become concerned about Hunwick and his egg, “will it ever hatch?”
But Hunwick knows a secret that they don’t…
This is a beautiful story about hope, hope in something happening and being open for something entirely different to change one’s life. Hunwick starts off looking after an egg and in the end makes a close friend. What would you do if you found an egg after a storm? How long would you choose to wait with it? Have you ever found a friendship when you weren’t looking for it? Have you pitied someone because they were looking after an egg that you thought wouldn’t hatch?
Read an interview with Mem Fox about Hunwicks egg here: Mem Fox Interview
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