Before Reading

Children will bring to this book a familiarity with folktales and a love for a well-told story. The Talking Eggs will delight them with its good and evil characters, its strange and magical happenings, and its fresh and natural language.

Tell students that they will be reading a folktale about two sisters—a “good” sister and a “bad” sister. Draw upon their prior experience with literature by asking them to think of other folktales or fairy tales that have “good” or “evil” characters. Discuss these characters in such classic tales as The Mitten, Stone Soup, The Three Billy-Goats Gruff, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, or other tales with which the children are familiar.

Extend the discussion by asking students to name personality traits or behavior shared by the good characters they mentioned and traits shared by the bad or evil characters. You may wish to use concept maps to organize students' responses. As students volunteer words for the maps, have them support their suggestions with specific examples of characters and their behavior from folktales or fairy tales. Be sure to save the maps for further use.

Good Characters

(center of web)

Branches of web:

Answers may include: kind; truthful; brave; hard-working; helpful to others; and can be trusted.

Bad Characters

(center of web)

Branches of web:

Answers may include: cruel; lazy; jealous; selfish; greedy; can't be trusted; and lying.