REX FINDS AN EGG

What might emerge from that strange egg?

Rex, a warthog, and Oslo, a small brown bird, find an egg. They know it must be an egg because, as Rex points out, it is “white and shaped like an egg!” Could the egg belong to a bird? A turtle? A fish? Rex and Oslo consider a whole list of animals that lay eggs. Some are unexpected (“Maybe it is a platypus egg”), some are scary (“I am afraid of crocodiles!”), and others are, hopefully, extinct (“Yikes!” says Oslo on learning that carnivorous dinosaurs laid eggs). With a new guess on each page, there’s plenty of opportunity for readers to think of what else might lay eggs. Simple, cartoonish art is enlivened by mixed-media touches: Rex’s body has a beautiful, touchable-looking gray roughness, the earth beneath their feet is represented by what appears to be photographs of soil, and the dinosaurs imagined by the duo have a lovely, subtle texture. A few of the hypothetical egg-layers are illustrated in a distinct, more realistic style. Some words are likely to be a stretch for beginning readers, but they are funny or interesting—platypus, squishy, extinct—making the difficult vocabulary its own reward. A comic conclusion gives the whole story one more gentle chuckle.

A charming, challenging, humorous early reader that invites participation.