P. Zonka Lays an Egg

Starred review from January 12, 2015
All of the chickens on the farm are efficient, regular egg-layers: “Maud laid one egg every day. Dora laid an egg every other day. Nadine always laid exactly five eggs a week.” The only exception (other than Gloria, who “turned out to be a rooster”) is henhouse romantic P. Zonka. Why won’t she lay eggs? “Because of the pale mornings, the soft dark moss, the stripes on the crocuses, the orange cat with one blue eye, the shining center of the dandelion, the sky at midnight,” she rhapsodizes about her farmyard surroundings. When P. Zonka finally does lay an egg, it’s as extraordinary as its poetic creator (“There were patterns of sun yellow, grass green, tulip red. There were blues as bright as day and blues as dark as midnight”). Paschkis’s (Apple Cake) curling lines form floral patterns, chicken feathers, and rooster plumes, evoking the decorations on Ukrainian pysanky Easter eggs, which she describes in an endnote (and which give P. Zonka her name). A lyrical and lushly illustrated allegory about creativity and taking time to notice beauty. Ages 4–8. Agent: Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt.

Elizabeth Morton narrates the story of a disagreement in the chicken coop with aplomb. She sounds calm and evenly modulated as the hens discuss their laying prowess. There's quite of range of producers--from a one-a-day layer to a steady five-a-week layer to Gloria, who turns out to be a rooster, and to P. Zonka, who never lays an egg at all. Morton voices a boastful Nadine and a perplexed Maud. As Gloria, Morton's oft-repeated "cock-a-doodle-do" brings humor, and as P. Zonka, Morton brings conviction and delight at the beauties of the natural world. Can the hens convince P. Zonka to try laying an egg? And, if so, what might that egg look like? An afterword explains the origins of this story and provides a description of Ukrainian Easter eggs. A.R. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine