Free Novel Read

Egg Drop




  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2002 by Mini Grey

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in 2002 in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Grey, Mini.

  Egg drop / Mini Grey. — 1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  Originally published: Great Britain : Jonathan Cape, 2002.

  Summary: Tragedy strikes when an egg, eager to fly like birds, airplanes, and insects, steps off of a tall tower.

  ISBN 978-0-375-84260-3 (trade)

  ISBN 978-0-375-94260-0 (lib. bdg.)

  ISBN 978-0-375-98549-2 (ebook)

  [1. Eggs—Fiction. 2. Flight—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.G873EG 2009

  [E]—DC22

  2008024534

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  To Tony

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  First Page

  About the Author and Illustrator

  The Egg was young.

  It didn’t know much.

  We tried to tell it,

  but of course it didn’t listen.

  If only it had waited.

  Here is the story of the Egg that wanted to fly.

  The Egg had always loved looking up,

  seeing birds and balloons,

  airplanes and insects,

  helicopters and bats and clouds.

  The Egg wanted to fly with them.

  It dreamed of ways to fly.

  But the Egg was young.

  It didn’t know much about flying

  (and it didn’t know anything

  about aerodynamics

  or Bernoulli’s principle).

  It just knew that it

  had to get up high.

  There was

  a very tall tower

  made of bricks

  on a hill.

  Inside there were

  583 stone steps.

  The Egg climbed

  to the top.

  The Egg was in the clouds.

  A bird flew past.

  The Egg squeezed its eyes shut.

  It drew a deep breath.

  It took a step into space.

  There was an enormous egg rush.

  The Egg opened its eyes and saw

  friends in the air, felt sky blasting past.

  But the Egg

  was not flying.

  It was falling.

  It took us a while to clean up the mess.

  We tried to put the Egg back together again, but nothing really worked and shells don’t heal.

  The Egg was young.

  It didn’t listen.

  If only it had waited.

  Luckily, the Egg was not wasted.

  MINI GREY was born in a Mini Cooper car in a parking lot in Wales, thus her name, Mini. She studied art and then worked as a theater designer and elementary school teacher before devoting full time to writing and illustrating very funny, totally original picture books. Her Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner Traction Man Is Here! as well as Traction Man Meets Turbodog and Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey have won her many fans. Other picture books she has written and illustrated include the Kate Greenaway Medal winner The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Gold Award winner Ginger Bear, and The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-Be. Her audacious heroes and heroines—inanimate objects with minds of their own—are unlike any you’ve met before! Mini Grey lives in Oxford, England, with her husband, Tony, and young son, Herbie.

 

 

  Mini Grey, Egg Drop

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