EGG DROP

“The Egg was young. / It didn’t listen. / If only it had waited.” This modern-day version of Humpty Dumpty (wall, fall, irreparable damage), first published in England in 2002, may prove as controversial as the comparatively benign Arlene Sardine (1998), by Chris Raschka, whose fishy heroine dies mid-book. Here, an egg wants desperately to fly and just can’t wait for all that pecking-out-of-the-shell-and-flapping-its-wings business. Despite many warnings (and being ignorant of Bernoulli’s principle, illustrated within), it climbs to the top of a 583-step tower and jumps. Gravity ensues. When the broken shell can’t be repaired with tomato soup, Band-Aids or nails, the egg—now curiously intact and smiling like the Mona Lisa—is plated sunny-side up with bacon for an unseen diner’s breakfast. Some children will laugh, two or three will never eat an egg again and, as usual, none will pay any attention when told “Wait until you’re older.” Grey’s appealing, comical artwork—with soft watercolors, toasty warm palette and refreshingly varied perspectives—employs bits of graph paper, photographs and other textures to wonderful, shattering effect. (Picture book. 5-8)