ROTTEN EGG PATERSON TO THE RESCUE

From one of Australia's best authors for children, a disappointing, old-fashioned story. Danny, 12, happens on a goanna demolishing an emu's nest and is able to save one egg, which he then contrives to incubate until it hatches. The egg survives not only threats from a local bully (at one point it is hurled from child to child but miraculously remains intact) but Danny's clumsy ministrations, including keeping it warm in an electric frying pan and carrying it around under his shirt. Finally, the egg hatches, under mildly dramatic circumstances. Thiele's style is always colorful, and he has a sure understanding of preadolescents. But the story here lags—there's a sameness to the egg's escapes—and is marred by stereotypes, especially of the mother and the local librarian (``Sh-h-h-h''). Nonessential.~(Fiction. 9-12)