Neighbourhood Nest by Sarah Jane Lightfoot

Good Morning, little eggs, one, two and three.
But wait – four? This doesn’t belong to me!
It landed in my nest without a sound.
Whose egg could this be, so smooth, white and round?

The beginning of this gorgeous story is set in a striking dawn sky. An Australian magpie has found a surprise smooth, white round egg in their nest and begins a wondrous journey across the rooftops to find out where the egg might belong. First to be visited is the willie wagtail’s nest built in a garden shed with web, but their eggs are smaller with spots. Then onto the ducks but they have not yet laid their eggs. Next are the kookaburras but their eggs have already hatched. The swallows nests are made of mud and sit under the windowsill. But their eggs have spots and freckles. The honeyeaters have a nest on the patio but their eggs have red spots.

All through this perfectly rhyming narrative, a myriad of birds in a variety of different nests are visited by magpie until the very end at dusk when who do they find perched on the gutters? And whose chick is now sharing the neighbourhood nest with three magpie hatchlings?

Neighbourhood Nest is a beautiful picture book to share with children of all ages. The illustrations are simply stunning and perfectly complement the text. From the partly embossed birds on the front cover, the endpapers showing the eggs with other objects from nature, the detailed full page illustrations in vibrant colour and great detail, this will be a book to treasure. There is also an opportunity to spot some items hidden in a nest as well as further accessible information about all of the backyard birds mentioned in the story.

A must-have book for a home, school or public library.

Themes: Nature, Birds, Nests, Australian Backyards, Bird Spotting.

Kathryn Beilby