osprey_archer | 100 Books, #4: Rechenka’s Eggs

Patricia Polacco's Rechenka's Eggs is a child-size festival of Russianness. Babushka, an old woman who paints beautiful pysanki eggs, adopts an injured goose that she names Rechenka. Rechenka accidentally destroys Babushka's pysanki eggs, but then lays thirteen glorious painted eggs of her own to make up for the loss.

(Babushka wins a prize for most beautiful pysanki work with Rechenka's eggs. Does that count as cheating, given she didn't paint them herself?)

The story is fun, but what I really remember about this book are the illustrations. This is the book that introduced me to Russia, an interest I've pursued on and off ever since. The intricate pysanki eggs; the Russian Orthodox icons tucked into the corners of the pictures; St. Basil's Cathedral in the distance as Babushka takes Rechenka's eggs to the Easter fair in Moskva.

People often argue for diversity in children's books on moral grounds. It's an important argument, and it needs to be made, but I don't think we should lose sight of this fact either: Books from disparate backgrounds, telling different kinds of stories, with artwork coming out of different artistic traditions, are simply more fun than books that are all the same. We don't have to - we shouldn't - talk about diversity like it's something distasteful that we should do merely because it's good for us, like eating lima beans.