Babak the beetle by Fred Paronuzzi illustrated by Andree Pigent

Babak (he is called Gerard in the original French edition) is happily rolling his dung ball home. Babak is a dung beetle. He bumps into something that looks like an egg. In the spirit of "Are you my Mother?" Babak sets off to find the owner of the egg. Mrs Ostrich suggests he ask the birds of the forest. Mr Cuckoo cannot identify the egg even though he confesses he puts his own eggs into the nests of other birds. Next stop the swamp. Mrs Frog explains she lays thousands of eggs in big transparent piles. She suggests asking the snakes but Babak discovers this egg is not theirs. The snakes suggests taking a look on some nearby fields.

"There he saw heaps of eggs like his. The grass was covered with them ... "

You will need to find this book for yourself to read the joke on the last page.  It certainly was a surprise I enjoyed. Hint: check my labels for the answer if you cannot find this book in your local or school library.

I do like books that are translated from other languages. There was a sequel to Babak the Beetle but sadly it is not available in English. The title is Gerard and the Sticky Thing. If you can read French here are some other picture books illustrated by Andree Prigent.