Two eggs, please.

Two eggs, please. by Sarah Weeks and illustrated by Betsy Lewin is great fun because it can be read on multiple levels and displays a fine amount of wry humor. The characters include animals of different habitats. You have your woodland creatures alongside jungle animals, seated next to your common dog and barnyard ram. And what's more, they are wearing clothes that define their varied occupations: the dogs are policemen, the stork a doctor, the mouse a musician, the rhino a cab driver among others.

The animals arrive early morning at the neighborhood diner for breakfast. What do they order? Eggs! sunny-side up, over-easy, scrambled, soft-boiled, hard-boiled, fried, poached, raw. As the bear cook prepares the eggs (note: he cracks open white eggs and brown eggs) he thinks, "Different. The Same." Then we see the animals eating their eggs at the counter and read the words again. "Different... but the same." It's such a wonderful picture book because we can count the animals as the enter one by one, describe what they are, what we think they do for work and why they are different. We can also acknowledge that they are all enjoying the same eggs for breakfast, yet they have different preferences for how they like them prepared. And aren't the white eggs and the brown eggs the same inside?

There are two full pages where the animals think the same thought, which is indicated by a speech bubble and one word, Different. Yes they are different from one another and that is the beauty of diversity. "Different... but the same." Very young children may not grasp this concept, but that's OK because there are many teaching opportunities with this book.

Different... but the same, reminds me of an email I received from my friend Maria Calais Pedro asking for one minute to sign an online petition. "I'm taking action with ONE to let you know that Congress is on track to cut poverty-fighting funding in the 2009 budget, putting the lives of millions of people who depend on our help at risk." You can sign the petition to restore 4.1 billion in funding for those living in extreme poverty here.
Thank you Maria- this is truly an important issue. Have you seen Girl in the Cafe yet?