Review by New York Times Review
"The Odd Egg" answers the question: "Are you my mother?" BY SHERIE POSESORSKI THE British author Emily Gravett specializes in distinctively dissatisfied picture-book characters. With imagination, ingenuity and a lot of faith, a male duck in her latest book, "The Odd Egg," finds a way to satisfy his maternal yearnings. Gravett herself is no stranger to restless ambition. She quit school at 16 and spent eight years traveling around by truck, trailer and army bus. But she settled down to study illustration at Brighton University and entered her final-year projects, two picture books, "Wolves" and "Orange Pear Apple Bear," in a contest for student illustrators. "Wolves" won, and Macmillan published both in Britain. "Wolves" also won the Kate Greenaway Medal, and Simon & Schuster published it and six more of her books in this country. The imaginations of her picture-book protagonists tend to be in overdrive. They are all odd ducks, and none more so than the one in "The Odd Egg," whose story unfolds in delicately rendered pencil and watercolor. A flamingo, parrot, robin, hen and owl are huddled together over their eggs in a kaffeeklatsch on the left side of a spread, with the duck all alone on the right. Wistfully, he lifts up one leg, finding nothing beneath him but his own webbed foot. With the melancholy and stoic dignity of Buster Keaton, he finds just the remedy for his yearnings when he discovers a huge speckled egg. He rolls the egg over to the other expectant mothers, hoping to be accepted by them. But all he gets are jeers. "It'll never hatch!" they mock as he perches on top of his mountainous egg. Like many a dreamer besieged by darts, the duck maintains his quiet faith - sometimes living inside your own head is the best refuge. Finally, the other birthdays arrive, and the hatching of all those eggs unfolds in a series of fanned-out vertically cut pages. The odd duck calmly knits away, confident his time is coming. And when it does, his egg cracks open with an earthquake rumble. The birds all huddle together, then explode in flight - for the newest newborn is a baby alligator! The baby, like Dumbo but with teeth, is as absolutely smitten with mama as mama-papa is with it, and readers will be too. Meanwhile a frog's style (and limbs) are cramped in Mo Willems's "Big Frog Can't Fit In." Willems, like Gravett, has been going flat out - five new books just this year - since the publication, in 2003, of his first picture book, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive The Bus!," which won a Caldecott Honor. In his new book, we free a big frog by virtue of opening the book, where she's being squished. The poses (engineering by Bruce Foster) will get surefire laughs at first sight of the frog: legs out, arms up, a panicked expression. No matter what kind of help the reader provides by pulling tabs to make the frog smaller, nothing works, and the center spread of the frog desperate to leap out of her confines, unable to stand it, is a highlight of comic pathos and 3-D design. With some help from her friends, a fleet of tiny frogs, a solution is constructed: a bigger book. As exuberant and clever as the book is, it is not much more than a humorously executed situation. You could say the setup is never set up: Why does the frog even want to fit into a book? As with many clever pop-ups, the stagecraft has to pass for a story. The 18th-century originator of movable books for children, the London bookseller Robert Sayer, called his books "Harlequinades." In them, flaps layered over the illustrations were to be combined by readers so they could create different versions of the scenes. In Gravett's witty works, trompe l'oeil collages and cut pages reveal character and add new levels to the story. That's the most satisfying kind of third dimension. Sherie Posesorski is the author of a young adult novel, "Shadow Boxing."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 26, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
All the birds have laid an egg except Duck. Fortunately, he finds one and it's beautiful, but the birds laugh at his enormous, green-speckled egg. Their eggs hatch; Duck's doesn't. He waits and waits until SNAP! a huge alligator breaks out of the shell. Gravett is on a roll (well, actually, an egg roll) with this charming visual joke. Cleverly designed with graduated cut pages as each egg Creak Crack opens, the spacious composition includes humorous details and a palette of green daubs on the white egg that harmoniously matches Duck's green neck. The handsome illustrations on classy cream-colored paper, the inviting cover, and the scream-inducing surprise ending make this an egg-cellent book for sharing and a just ducky natural for storytime.--Cummins, Julie Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
An odd duck finds an odd egg in Gravett's (Meerkat Mail) economically told story. Envious of a quintet of various mother birds snuggling with their eggs, a male duck wants an ovoid bundle, too. From an undisclosed locale, he adopts a gigantic egg whose green spots match his head feathers. The other birds cackle with amusement; the bookish owl consults an "Egg Spotters' Guide" and looks askance at Duck's treasure. Gravett arranges the six eggs across a spread in ascending-size order. When each "creak cracks," layered, before-and-after specially cut flaplike pages reveal each successive baby greeting its mother with a "tweet" or a "honk." Ultimately only Duck's mystery egg remains. Using visual suspense and few words, Gravett depicts an alligator bursting from the shell, snapping its jaws and scattering the naysayers. There is mild ambiguity-not everyone is shown getting out of its way and feathers do fly-yet the gator seems amiable. A parting view shows it waddling after skinny Duck, saying "Mama," wearing a scarf Duck has knitted and booties that resemble a duck's webbed feet. A witty salute to both nature and nurture. Ages 4-8. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-This is the story of a drake who is feeling left out. "All the birds had laid an egg. All except for Duck." When he finds a huge, green-spotted egg, he loves it right away. Sitting high atop it-so high that he barely fits into the picture-he is subjected to the taunts of the egg layers: "Not pretty." "It'll never hatch!" "Ha ha!" Gravett uses narrow pages that gradually increase in size to reveal all of the other eggs hatching, from the smallest chick to the tallest flamingo. While the moms cuddle their new hatchlings, Duck waits-and waits. Leaning against the large egg, he knits up a storm until "Creak Crack, SNAP": out pops an enormous alligator, scaring all of the scoffing birds right off the page. The final, priceless illustration shows an adoring alligator marching-in four knitted slippers and a muffler-behind Duck, murmuring, "Mama." There are many aspects of the story that make it worth adding to the what-have-I-hatched collection. First, it's so simple that toddlers can enjoy it. Second, the layout is unique and well suited to the plot. Third, the illustrations are a joy to behold: funny, personable, and oh-so-eye-catching. The ecru background on every page is a nice touch, lending the book a little extra cachet. Kids will love cracking the pages of this exceptional story.-Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) This delicious revenge fantasy begins with a case of egg envy. "All the birds had laid an egg. All except for Duck." Gravett accentuates the divide between the haves and the have-not in her first double-page spread by showing the robin, parrot, hen, flamingo, and owl grouped into a cozy maternal pile with their eggs, while Duck stands alone, an empty, eggless space between his legs. Who knows why this masculine fowl wants a baby-to-be, but he is delighted when, in the next spread, he finds "the most beautiful egg in the whole wide world," so large he has to use both wings to roll it into place. The soft lines and colors of Gravett's expressive illustrations lead one to expect a gentle story; but the other birds aren't gentle at all in their disdain for the giant spotted oval beneath Duck's behind. Their eggs hatch one by one (on a burgeoning sequence of cleverly cut pages), leaving Duck still waiting and optimistically knitting booties and a scarf. But when his egg does finally hatch, watch out. One "SNAP" of his adopted offspring's jaws, and it's bye bye birdies. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This simple plot, illustrated in delicately winsome pencil and buoyant watercolor, will make readers jump at the upshotand return to be startled again. "All the birds," including a chicken, an owl, a parrot and a toweringly elegant flamingo who doesn't fit on the page, have laid their own eggsexcept Duck, who peers curiously below his balletically hoisted leg at the empty spot where an egg should be. When he finds one and adopts it, the others taunt him, la Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson's classic Carrot Seed: " 'Ha Ha!' 'It'll never hatch!' " In a series of lengthening pages (the smallest being two inches from gutter to edge), all the other baby birds hatch while expectant Duck patiently knits. Creamy backgrounds and gentle colors don't mute the shocker of just who Duck's hatchling turns out to be as it shoots leftward out of its egg and across the spread, scattering birds everywhere. Endpapers show baby sporting a knitted scarf and booties, adoringly following proud (male) "mama" Duck. A gem of persistence and sweetness. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
