book cover

Jenny Peckles Lays Eggs With Speckles

by Rachel Emily, illustrated by Paul Delaney

Interest age: 4 to 5
Reading age: 4+

Published by Farshore, 2025

  • Funny
  • Picture books
  • Poetry and rhyme

About this book

Down on Old Worrall’s Farm, a group of imaginatively named hens are laying eggs with a difference. Spotted eggs, eggs with red splodges, glowing eggs, eggs with speckles, and even sparkly eggs. It’s all very impressive. 

When it transpires that Sally McSquawk doesn’t actually lay eggs that talk, the book’s narrator becomes suspicious. Have all the chickens been pretending about their various egg-citing creations, just to make a convenient rhyme? 

But when a hawk is spotted above the farm, the hens band together in an impressive show of invention that proves it’s best to think twice before picking on a chicken… 

This lovely, silly, inventive rhyming book about some clever chickens is great fun, with lots of brilliant illustration from Paul Delaney and even a lovely page at the back of the book showing pictures of author Rachel Emily with the real hen Jenny Peckles. 

The rhyming is silly and rolls delightfully off the tongue, and, as with all rhyming picture books, helps children get used to listening to the rhythms of language in a fun context. 

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