AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh. This book is so sweet. A cat wakes and finds an egg in her bed, so she must have hatched it. But she needs time to nap and to get food. She desperately needs someone to help her hatch this egg. As an adult I figured out the ending pretty quick, but it didn’t matter. The interaction between the birds, turtle, the dog, and the cat are just so Charlotte’e Web that this reader wears a huge smile on their face while reading. I am sure all kids and parents will as well. ( )

I love the beginning of this book. Dog says Woof Woof. Cat, stretched out in a basket says, Quiet there, I’m hatching a kitten.

Perfect intro to a cute book.

Well, how long does it take to hatch a kitten egg? It took Horton, ( my favorite picture book of all times), a whole year to hatch his elephant bird.

So how does a cat come to have an egg? Cat thinks it happened while sleeping. Upon waking there it was and it is the same color or kind of the same as cat’s yellow fur, so it must belong.
Cat comes a bit weary of tending the egg and goes out to find help, all the while, toting the egg in his/her mouth.

Cat is smart enough to enlist the help of other egg laying animals... crow, koel, turtle... but now the egg seems to be a little soggy for some reason.
Sensing a problem, cat, with egg in mouth, rushes back to dog, lamenting that the egg is destroyed! Why is it gooey and melting?

Well reader I must stop here and allow you to find out the fate of cat’s egg.

You might ask, what is a koel? I did. It’s an Asian bird that lays its single egg in another bird’s nest, particularly the jungle crow.

This is a cute addition for your spring collection of picture books. ( )

Cat wakes up one day on top of a yellow egg in this amusing picture-book from India, and, assuming that she must have laid it in the night, awaits the hatching of her kitten. She attempts to enlist the help of the other animals, from dubious Dog to skeptical Crow, but no one can help her. It is only when her egg begins to deteriorate that she discovers its true nature: it is made from chocolate and not for her...

Pairing an amusing text from Indian author Aparna Karthikeyan with appealing artwork from German illustrator Christine Kastl, who seems to have worked on a number of other Indian picture-books, Cat's Egg is an entertaining tale, one which teaches an important lesson about not giving chocolate to cats and dogs. I particularly liked the character of Dog here, who is patient and kind, even when Cat gets a little... well, catty, when her foolishness is revealed. All in all, a cute book, one I would recommend to young animal lovers, and to anyone looking for silly stories for the picture-book set. ( )