Illustrations copyright 2002 by Marsha Winborn
by Marisa Montes, Illustrated by Marsha Winborn
Egg-Napped! is my first rhyming picture book. My husband David and I love birds, especially water fowl. When I came up with the idea for Egg-Napped!, I was imagining an egg rolling around in a forest. I knew it was a large bird's egg, but I didn't know what kind of bird. I also didn't know why the egg was rolling through the forest. My first stanza came to me in the middle of the night:
There was Doris the Tortoise, as big as a cow,
sitting next to the Egg, with a wrinkled up brow.
So I knew Doris would play a large part in the story. Then I decided that the egg would be the beloved first born of a newly wed goose couple. Somehow, the egg had to roll away from its nest and be found by Doris, who wants to keep it for her own. But I wanted the egg to roll away again, incurring more and more danger. One idea led to another, and I came up with the present story.
Originally, Doris, who is the first villain, became the heroine by catching the egg in her mouth. But my editor didn't like that, so I went back to the drawing board. We each had different ideas for the ending, but when I added Kit the flying squirrel as the heroine, she loved it. I started with an egg, and without realizing it, I wrote a story of community, team work, friendship, and the fierceness and tenacity of parental love—all values that are dear to me.