Eggs-traordinary Llama: Llama Llama Easter Egg by Anna Dewdney

Llama Easter, Llama Spring.

What does Easter morning bring?

A bird watches from the window sill, where Llama Llama finds a pastel-striped Easter pail with a chocolate bunny and some bright jelly beans inside. But what's missing are the colored Easter Eggs.

So Mama Llama and Little Llama head off to the Easter Egg hunt with all his preschool pals--Nellie Gnu, Gilroy Goat, and the rest, all finding the hidden eggs in clumps of the tall spring grass.

But Llama Llama wanders off from the rest to look for his eggs, and inside a bush he sees something quite different from what the other kids are adding to their Easter baskets.

In the bush Little Llama spots a nest with four little blue robin's eggs inside. And hearing a quick crack, he looks closer. He watches another crack lengthen, and then a baby robin begin to emerge from the blue egg. It's not the usual colored Easter eggs he discovers; it's something else....

A Big Surprise!

Anna Dewdney's Llama Llama Easter Egg (Viking Press, 2016) offers an unexpected Easter event as he watches a baby robin be born. Mama Llama and her Little Llama have a very unique spring experience together, and this lovely little board book makes great seasonal reading and a very nice addition to a toddler's Easter basket.

Duck Calls! Five Little Ducks (Pete The Cat) by James Dean

Five little ducks went out to play

With one cool cat, leading the way.

With his red polka-dotted floatie, Pete's set for a swim. And who better to hit the pond with than five fuzzy yellow duckies?

But only four little ducks jump in.

The little duckie wearing little red shoes like Pete's school shoes doesn't hit the water.

The Pete wants everyone to splash, jump, and hop. But the duckling in the orange shirt doesn't show up.

Pete urges the rest to head for the swings, but when they arrive at the playground, there are only two playmates for Pete. When it begins to rain, Pete suggests they all head inside, but only one little duck goes along for the ride.

Pete the Cat said, "... just me and you!"

But that little duck left, too!

Where IS everybody?

Rocking the classic nursery song "Five Little Ducks," Pete the Cat counts his way down from five to one--and then none. Poor Pete! Has he lost his following?

But not to worry, in James Dean's Pete the Cat: Five Little Ducks (Harper, 2017), as Dean's new take on the old song quickly brings the whole gang back for the chorus. It's all present and accounted for in Dean's latest engaging picture book in his latest title in this easy-to-read counting book for beginners. A reset of the "little runaways" motif, this is sweet and simple, a good companion story for Eileen Christelow's perennial best-seller, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (A Five Little Monkeys Story).