Too cute for words.
Dragon's Extraordinary Egg
Debi Gliori
ISBN: 9780802737595
First published in UK as "Dragon Loves Penguin"
Textural, close-up views, colorful drawn characters reminds strongly of Mo Willems' Pigeon books.
A penguin is telling her young chick a bedtime story. This story is epic and filled with mystery and fantasy - a clan of dragons lives on top of a frozen volcano, while penguins live down below on the ice. An eggless dragon spies an abandoned egg on the ice, adopts it, raises it, and teaches the very undragon-like creature (spoilers: its a penguin) how to live happily among dragons, until one day when the penguin notices a certain change in the temperature that the thicker-scaled siblings and friends don't notice. At the end, a character returns in a surprise cameo, revealing a much closer relationship between the current happily-listening chick and the amazing story (or history) being told.
A bit on the long side for storytime, sadly. It's hard to get adoption-friendly stories that aren't polemics or utterly treacly (sorry, I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, but the shoe fits) or really specific. This one is just cute and outre enough to be enjoyable for most kids, but with a special pop of meaning for anyone adopted (or really, anyone who feels like they just don't fit in with their family).
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