THE ODD EGG

This simple plot, illustrated in delicately winsome pencil and buoyant watercolor, will make readers jump at the upshot—and 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 eggs—except 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, à 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)