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Hatch, Little Egg

Written & Illustrated by Édouard Manceau
Owlkids Books 9/15/2014
978-1-77147-077-3
Age 3 to 7 32 pages
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“The little bird is hatching! The little bird is hatching!

“Animals gather. Cameras Flash. The excitement builds. Is it happening? How much longer? Will the little bird live up to the crowd’s expectations? Get ready to find out! One . . . two . . . three . . . “

Opening

A reindeer, with a camera slung over his shoulder, rides his motorcycle. Where is he going? I have no idea. “Hey, Jack! Are you going to see the little bird hatch?”

Review

A flat tire has Jack stopped on the side of the road. Reindeer gives Jack a lift. As they travel, the road becomes congested with cars, bikes, and campers. Everyone is excited. Little bird will be hatching soon. With cameras in hand, the visitors walk toward the egg. Even a few bees have flown in for the occasion. I was hoping a couple of the bees would have a teeny-tiny camera. Actually, all the cameras are real, not an iPhone in sight. At the egg, a mouse raises her purse. She wears a black almost square hat and appears to be in charge of the gathering, or maybe she was just the first to arrive. The light-orange egg waits, sitting upright, unaware of the happenings around it.

“Ooooh! Here we go!”
“Hatch little egg!”
“Get ready! One, two, three . . . “

The egg cracks. The crowd’s excitement grows. Eyes widen in anticipation. The top of the egg pops off and the little bird is free. No one takes a picture. No one smiles. Everyone looks surprised, yet no one looks happy. Only the mouse has her arms stretch out as if to say, “Tada!” Someone else says,

“What on earth”

Everyone looks confused. Still, not one flash fills the area around the egg and it’s former tenant. He waves. Asks why no one wants to take his picture. No one moves. The mouse looks angry. One by one, the crowd disperses. They are disappointed, denied the show they came to see. The egg’s occupant is completely free and stands smiling as the crowds go home.  Why, what just happened? Something is wrong, or at least not right.

The illustrations in Hatch, Little Bird are wonderful. They are very similar to The Race (reviewed here). Bright eyes fill every car and bike. The enthusiasm is palatable. The happy crowd contains the reindeer, Jack (owl), birds, bears, and bees, the mouse, and at least one rhino. Really, it’s a zoo. Kids will love these animals and will understand both, what they came to see and why they leave disappointed.

The humorous twist is totally unexpected. Actually, I had no idea why this egg hatching was so important, at least to the crowd. There will be kids who will want to know how what came out of the egg, got into the egg. It’s a very good question. Slowly, turn the page. Pretty funny, I thought. Kids will think it is funny, too. They may not get the crowd-mentality, or even care, but they will get the twist, or the joke, if you will.

Kids will like Hatch, Little Bird and be able read it themselves after hearing the story once. They can go off and make up story after story about why they came, and what happened the day the egg hatched. Imaginations free to go wild or mild. This is one reason I like Mr. Manceau’s work. The other reason is the strange creatures he draws. Positioned against a white background, the creatures seem to pop off the page. Hatch, Little Bird is a goofy story with endless possibilities for your child’s imagination. A book they can read by themselves. Hatch, Little Bird, a French import, is a delightful picture book for young children. The multiple layers will tickle adults.

HATCH, LITTLE EGG. Text and illustrations copyright © 2013 Éditions Milan. Reproduced by permission of the US publisher, Owlkids Books, Berkeley, CA.
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Purchase Hatch, Little Bird at Amazon—B&N—Book Depository—Owlkids Books—your favorite local bookstore.
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Learn more about Hatch, Little Bird HERE
Meet the author/illustrator, Édouard Manceau, at his website:    http://edouardmanceau.blogspot.com/
Find more pictures books that delight at the Owlkids Books website:    http://www.owlkids.com/

Translated by Karen Li

Éditions Milan originally published Hatch, Little Bird in 2013, in France.
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Also by Édouard Manceau

Clic Clac

Presto Change-O: A Book of Animal Magic

My Little Library

The Race

Reviewed HERE
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LOOK! coming in 2015

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Copyright © 2014 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews

Michael A. Carrier is a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law, Camden. He has published and spoken widely on the antitrust and intellectual property laws, and is one of the leading authorities in the country on the intersection of these laws. His new book, Innovation for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law, looks at how innovation has been threatened by the United States legal system and seeks to reverse the trend, offering ten revolutionary proposals, from pharmaceuticals to peer-to-peer software, to help foster innovation. In the post below Carrier reports on today’s decision in the Cipro case.  Read Carrier’s previous post here.

A tidal wave of high drug prices has recently crashed across the U.S. economy. One of the primary culprits: agreements by which brand-name drug manufacturers pay generic firms to stay off the market. This issue has been raging in the halls of Congress, the courts, and the government agencies.

And now, perhaps, the first full appellate court. This morning, a panel of three Second Circuit judges upheld a settlement involving the antibiotic ciprofloxacin hydrochloride (Cipro), the blockbuster drug used to treat bacterial illnesses. In a nutshell, Bayer paid firms interested in making generic versions of Cipro $398 million in return for the generics agreeing not to enter the market during the term of Bayer’s patent.

This type of settlement, which is becoming more common by the day, includes a “reverse payment.” Such a payment differs from typical licensing payments that flow from challengers to patentees by preventing competition and by paying the generic more than it could have earned by entering the market. This is possible because, by delaying generic entry, the brand firm dramatically increases its monopoly profits and uses a portion of these profits to lavish windfalls on generics.

Agreements like these have been blessed by most courts in recent years. Courts have explained that the agreements reduce costs and increase innovation. They have referred to settlements as “natural by-products” of the Hatch-Waxman Act (the 1984 law designed to foster generic competition and drug innovation). And they have pointed to patents’ presumption of validity in demonstrating the agreements’ reasonableness. In fact, the Second Circuit had previously made these very arguments in upholding an agreement involving the breast-cancer drug Tamoxifen.

The court today relied on the Tamoxifen case in upholding the Cipro settlement. But the most interesting aspect of the decision was the panel’s recommendation that “because of the ‘exceptional importance’ of the antitrust implications of reverse exclusionary payment settlements of patent infringement suits, we invite plaintiffs-appellants to petition for rehearing in banc.” The panel could not overturn its earlier decision absent an intervening decision by the U.S. Supreme Court or an in banc proceeding involving the entire Second Circuit. But it offered four reasons for rehearing:
(1) “The United States has itself urged us to repudiate Tamoxifen” (in a brief filed by the DOJ by invitation last summer);
(2) “There is evidence that the practice of entering into reverse exclusionary payment settlements has increased since we decided Tamoxifen”;
(3) The principal drafters of the Hatch-Waxman Act have criticized settlements after Tamoxifen was decided; and
(4) “Tamoxifen relied on an unambiguous mischaracterization of the Hat