Egg

The publisher's characteristically crisp, clean design nicely serves this well-thought-out chronicle of eggs and hatching. Birds (among them the penguin, the familiar street pigeon and the more exotic golden pheasant of China) take up the first part of this book, while the latter sections are devoted to such hatchlings as the corn snake, the Kerry slug and a trio of fish. Each spread boasts a series of color photographs, the first of an egg that is either intact or has its ``pip'' (the first visible sign of the hatching process), the remainder showing, in distinct stages, the infant creature pecking, slithering or swimming its way out of its first home. A final view captures the fledgling in youthful glory at, for example, the age of two days, or presents a full-grown adult specimen. Captions, blocks of text and miniature sidebars convey, with remarkable accessibility, a wealth of information, from the given creature's habitat to the length of its incubation period and nesting patterns. Something to crow over. Ages 5-8. (Mar.)