An Extraordinary Egg

• An Extraordinary Egg by Leo Lionni on Powells

• Website for the book's author and Caldecott Winner Leo Lionni, 1910-1999

Assumptions, mistaken identity, and what else? Through whimsical painterly illustrations and a more than credible narrative, three frog friends adventure together and get to know a creature from another species. Marilyn thinks she knows everything, even if it's only the words and she's not sure what a word refers to. August frog goes along for the adventure, while Jessica loves to reach out and discover what's new and trending.

If someone (Marilyn) calls the big pebble a chicken egg, whatever hatches from the egg must be a chicken and once a chicken, always a chicken, even if someone (like the parent who laid the egg that hatched) calls it an alligator. That's how life works.

Does it matter? The name usually matters to the critter, the human, to the group that first imagined and then created whatever it was. Is "a rose by any other name" still a rose? If you call an alligator a chicken does it become a chicken? No, it doesn't become a chicken. However, the egg starts out being called a chicken and for the three frog friends, it ends as a chicken, even after the alligator's mother calls it her "sweet little alligator." I did call this story "a more than credible narrative."

My cultural anthropology instructor told us about three baseball umpires. The rookie umpire announced, "I call them as I see them." The umpire with more experience said, "I call them as they are." The long-time veteran umpire insisted, "They are what I call them."

Do you remember "define your terms" when you were – or still are – writing a certain kind of paper? It's about everyone being on the same page so each person knows what the other is referring to. Chicken or alligator or…?


Dragonfly Books

It took a long search, but after I visited the rhc books dot com I found on the back cover in tiny print, I discovered this particular Dragonfly Books series is a Random House imprint.

Inside the back cover tells us:

Dragonfly Books introduce children to the pleasures of caring about and sharing books. With Dragonfly Books, children will discover talented artists and writers and the worlds they have created, ranging from first concept books to read-together stories to books for newly independent readers.

# # #