Day 1 - The Enormous Egg

January 6, 2015
Day 1


I have been looking for a book for a very long time, maybe even forty years. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Jones, did not succumb to the hippy era with a flippancy but instead focused on the next generation, she read to us. I loved it when she did. I was searching for this book, the title and the author. I simply could not remember. And I really wanted to remember.

Before Christmas I found it in a Mennonite ReUzit Shoppe in a nearby town. My search was never pointedly intentional, it was a vague search, something that was in the back of my mind, something that kept me company. It's the book! There it was in a floppy, makeshift bookshelf.  All of a I sudden I was sitting in Mrs. Jones reading circle wanting to believe that an enormous egg hatched by an ordinary hen could possibly be a dinosaur. The makeshift bookcase became the finest marble bookshelf. The title is "The Enormous Egg" and the author is Oliver Butterworth and it is illustrated by Louis Darling.

"Jesse! You are going to love this book. We are going to read this together!" My son is the same age I was when Mrs. Jones read this book to me. Providential? Can we go that far? Oh, he delighted in the tale as much as I. He would sneak the book to read when I was not available. With a huge smile on his face, he came with the book in his hand and told me he had finished it, without me. Not cool!

Reading this book, again, affirmed that I have always enjoyed great pieces of literature. Can you imagine how sad it would have been to reread the book and view it how we sometimes do the places from the past as diminutive, lacking the luster they held in our memories. However, the luster remains, in fact it might now be sparkling.  "The Enormous Egg" does not disappoint.  Jesse confirmed the magic when, gazing out the window, he questioned "Mom, do you think this could actually happen?"