All In Good Time! Peep and Egg (I'm Not Hatching!) by Laura Gehl

"ARE YOU HATCHING YET?" PEEP ASKED.

"WE'RE GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FUN ONCE YOU ARE HATCHED!"

"TOO SCARY!" SAID EGG.

Being hatched is not all it's cracked up to be!

At least that's Egg's position, and his decision remains firm.

At least one position is cleared up in the "Which came first?" conundrum. Peep is definitely the first, and she's ready to do it ALL!

"WE CAN STROLL TO THE POND AND SAY 'HI!' TO THE DUCKS!" SAID PEEP.

"TOO FAR."SAID EGG.

I'M NOT HATCHING!"

One is the loneliest number. So Peep persists in her persuasion. They could take a ride on Sheep's warm, woolly back. They could play hide and seek in the tall grass. At night they could roost on the tractor and count the stars. But the deal is not a soft sell. Egg is a hard case to crack.

"I'M NOT HATCHING!"

Even the Peep's promise of a blueberry muffin picnic fails to crack Egg's resolve.

With a sort of '"See you later, procrastinator" wave, Peep walks away to find her own fun alone.

And then she hears that sound!

It seems Egg's resolve has, er, cracked, at last, and with a cap of shell still clinging to his head, he runs after Peep to join her in their big adventure.

Laura Gehl's Peep and Egg: I'm Not Hatching (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Press, 2016) is the best egg story of the spring season. Stubborn and scared, Egg finally gives in to the inevitable at last, and all's well that ends well in this subtly told story of taking that next big step in life. Preschoolers will empathize with both characters, the early adopter and the late bloomer, all the while knowing how this one is bound to end. In simple thick-line drawings, each of the few lines illustrator Joyce Wan uses is fully expressive, and the artwork is all it's cracked up to be in this comical pre-Easter tale that begs to be read--with lots of eggs-pression.

Family History! Dragon's Extraordinary Egg by Debi Gliori

IT'S BEDTIME IN THE LAND OF ICE AND SNOW.

"NIGHT-NIGHT!" SAYS BIB'S MOMMY.

"PLEASE READ ME A STORY," SAYS BIB.

Mom agrees, with the usual stipulation that there will be just one before sleep-tight time, and opens a storybook with a dragon on the cover. It tells of a time when the dragons flew far south to the land of ice and snow and sheltered in a mountain with a fire inside for warmth. They flourished and in time all the lady dragons laid eggs of their own--all but one.

This dragon was very sad, and left the other proud mommy dragons to be alone.

"POOR DRAGON," SAID BIB.

"I KNOW," SAID MOMMY, BUT... SOMETIMES THINGS HAPPEN FOR THE BEST."

But one day she finds an egg, a smallish one, with no mother to keep it warm. But when it hatches, it is not a scaly baby dragon at all, but a downy penguin baby. Still, the Mommy Dragon loves her baby, names it Little One, and takes her back home where the other babies are growing up.

The dragon gives Little One all her love and time, But the other little dragons know a penguin is not a dragon, and they are mean to her.

"YOU'RE NOT A REAL DRAGON. YOU CAN'T BREATHE FIRE. YOU'RE COVERED IN...FEATHERS!

WIMP!"

But Little One has her feet firmly on the ground, and she suddenly feels that the mountain is growing warm, too warm, and she realizes that it is a volcano, about to blow its top.

"FLEE!" SHE CRIES.

The dragons take to their wings, but Little One has no way to escape but to sled down the mountain to safety on her smooth, feathery tummy.

Then she spots an egg, a small egg....

Mommy closes the storybook and looks at Bib.

"THEN THE EGG HATCHED, AND WHO DO YOU THINK WAS INSIDE?: SHE SAYS.

"YOU!"

"I WAS THE EGG AND YOU WERE LITTLE ONE!" BIB CRIES!

The story Mommy read was indeed her family story, but Debi Gliori's Dragon's Extraordinary Egg (Bloomsbury, 2014), has yet one more surprise in store, as Grandma Dragon appears just in time to read their own story to Bib again.

Author-illustrator Gliori tells this story with lyrical language and lovely illustrations that contrast the large angular dragons with the small sleek penguins. This is a appealing story of an unusual family, but one filled with plenty of love. "One would be hard-pressed to find a warmer or more engaging adoption/blended-family tale than this one," says Kirkus in their starred review.