Oliver Butterworth (1915–1990)

Above all else, this book is hilarious. Every page has some pithy line that made me snort or giggle. I especially adore Mr. Pearson, who gives us gems like this (the context is the kids needing to come up with 50K):

"Why, that's splendid," Mr. Pearson said. "Now we have ten dollars, a dictionary and a giant-size package of cookies. We're really making progress toward that fifty thousand, and we have two whole months to go. I don't see how we can miss."

Beyond the sardonic hilarity, it's also a show more fascinating snapshot of the time when the US was falling head over heels in love with technology at any cost.

A lovely book. Highly recommended. Thanks, Wendy. show less

Recommended for girls 7-12 & others

I read and have the 1960 hardback tenth printing edition. I adored this book as a kid. I was intrigued by the idea of a little girl having the power of being able to hear others’ thoughts and how she’s able to use that ability to “know” so much beyond her years on a quiz show. Won’t give more than that away, but it’s great fun.

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I reread this book yet again in April 2019 prior to having to give up my copy of the book. I doubt that I’ll get show more a chance to read it again. My current public library has only one copy and it’s for library use only. It’s out of print and I’m sure many libraries no longer have it at all. I think my last reread was since I joined Goodreads twelve years ago but I think it’s been some years back.

This book is great fun! It’s a really good-humored book.

It’s hilarious. The father’s sense of humor is particularly wonderful. Very amusing!

I love how the parents go along with the deception. I probably got a huge kick out of that when I was a child. This was one of my favorite books when I was in elementary school.

I love the spelling bee and the quiz show and the showing of the outdoors & outdoor activities. I love the characters and their relationships. I enjoyed some of the humorous droll names a few of the characters have. I’d forgotten that Jenny age 6 didn’t have as big a role as I’d thought and that it is her brothers Joe 12 and Stanley 10 that are also main characters, though everybody has a role/place in the story.

There aren’t too many illustrations but the black ink ones that appear I found charming.

It’s definitely a tale of its time and is not politically correct at all (sexism, fur, etc. etc. etc.) and it’s now historical fiction, but I think it deserves to be in print.

I’m always interested to see what literature I was exposed to when young and impressionable. Even though there are plenty of anachronisms I still thoroughly enjoy this period piece book. show less

Who knew I'd be recommending a children's book--LT has truly broadened my reading interests. I learned about The Enormous Egg from a recent article on "comfort" books on the NPR website.

Oliver Butterworth (love the name) wrote The Enormous Egg in 1956. It's the story of Nate Twitchell, a twelve-year old boy living on a farm in New Hampshire whose chicken lays a huge egg that hatches out as a baby dinosaur (a Triceratops, to be exact), which Nate names Uncle Beazley. With the help of Dr. show more Zeimer, a vacationing paleontologist from Washingon, DC that Nate meets while out fishing, Nate cares for Uncle Beazley and navigates the media frenzy that develops when word leaks out about the birth of a live dinosaur. Uncle Beazley doubles in size almost everyday and, with the approaching winter, Dr. Zeimer convinces Nate that moving him to the National Museum in Washington, DC is in his best interests. Once in Washington, government funding is required to pay for Uncle Beazley's care and Nate goes up against Senator Granderson who wants to outlaw all dinosaurs from the United States.

This is definitely a comfort book, probably best read with milk and cookies, and contains words like "jeepers", "fooey" and "slidy" (to describe how the dinosaur's skin felt). It's very well-written and while dated in some ways (the important people are all white men), it's eerily current in other ways (the media frenzy and the political posturing in Washington).

Recommended for kids of all ages. 4 stars. show less

One of my childhood favorites. I was fascinated by dinosaurs and the idea of hatching your one of own was the ultimate fantasy. "The Enormous Egg" inspired me to fill a plastic garbage full of paper and keep it near the radiator in the hopes it would somehow "hatch." Alas, I was crushed when my by feeble experiment disappointed, but luckily the book didn't.