The 2005 documentary, March of the Penguins, helped fuel further interest in learning about penguins. I'm sure that author Martin Jenkins and illustrator Jane Chapman were thrilled because they published the wonderful book, The Emperor's Egg in 1999, six years prior! The Emperor's Egg tells the story of an Emperor Penguin family, mom, dad, and egg.
The Emperor's Egg starts with a father penguin alone on the ice with his egg. The book does a great job with using different sized text and a conversational style of writing to draw students in. We are told that when the egg was laid, the father was out to sea eating and getting fat to sustain himself, and now the father is in charge of keeping the egg warm by resting the egg under his belly. The book shows and tells the reader how the penguin fathers work together to keep themselves warm on the ice. Penguins fathers also sometimes have to move and slide down slopes and keep the egg safe. It doesn't shy away from telling readers about the very real dangers for the egg if it gets cold or gets cracked.
When the egg is hatched, the chick still has to be kept warm but also needs to be fed, and the book describes the strange (to humans) way that the chick is fed: the father has a pouch in his throat that makes a milk-like substance for the chick that he sort of throws up into the chick's mouth. These penguins go to such lengths to keep their chicks alive!
Finally, the penguin mother returns and the entire family celebrates by making noise. A caption explains that penguins have their own special calls and whistles to help them find their mates among all of the penguins. The mother feeds the chick by, again, throwing up in the chick's mouth, and the father gets a break.
That's how the story ends! One of the best things about this story, as I mentioned earlier, is that the conversational style of the book keeps the reader and listener interested. It gives a ton of information while entertaining us. The illustrations are realistic but very interesting. Check it out!