During my shelving excursions in the bookstore, I often run across books that beg to be read, right then and right there, no matter if I am on the clock or not. Of course, I do not do this with middle grade or young adult, but picture books are great because they only take a moment and almost always make me smile. Almost. Sometimes I find some picture books to be rather shocking. Today I ran across a book called The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett. I have featured Ms. Gravett as an illustrator on this site previously, so I quickly snatched it up and read it through.The story is about a duck who cannot seem to lay an egg. While all the other animals lay eggs and wait for them to hatch, duck doesn't have one. Until she discovers a very odd egg. A big giant odd egg with green spot. The other eggs all hatch revealing the various baby animals. They all laugh at duck and her weird egg. Then the egg hatches and out pops an alligator that eats all the animals and their babies.
Does anyone else find this story a little disturbing? I know it's the circle of life, but this is a children's picture book. I can't read this to children at story time. What kind of message does that send? Don't make fun of people or an alligator will eat you or something similarly terrible?
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