Cat’s Egg

When Cat—a slender, orange feline with emerald green eyes—finds a golden egg, she sits on it, hoping it will hatch a kitten. Cat’s friend, a spotted dog with a long snout, is skeptical: “He says politely, ‘that’s not how it works.’ ” Cat, in search of a babysitter for the egg, speaks with Cuckoo, who suggests that Cat put the egg in Crow’s nest (“All of us were raised by crows”), but Crow has no space. Next, Cat visits Turtle, who has laid her own eggs in the sand but is soon returning to the sea. In the end, though, no babysitter is needed: when the egg melts, Cat discovers that it’s a chocolate Easter egg. Kastl’s artwork offers a playfully skewed sense of scale, as though from the perspectives of the animals. Karthikeyan doesn’t elaborate on the ways different animals do come into the world but does note that chocolate is harmful to pets; readers will enjoy knowing better than Cat that kittens don’t come from eggs . Ages 4–8. (Apr.)