Horton Hatches the Egg (Dr Seuss)

Poor Horton. Dr. Seuss's kindly elephant is persuaded to sit on an egg while its mother, the good for nothing bird lazy Maysie, takes a break. Little does Horton know that Maysie is setting off for a permanent vacation in Palm Springs. He waits, and waits, never leaving his precarious branch, even through a freezing winter and a spring that's punctuated by the insults of his friends. ("They taunted. They teased him. They yelled 'How Absurd! Old Horton the Elephant thinks he's a bird!'") Further indignities await, but Horton has the patience of Job from whose story this one clearly derives and he is rewarded in the end by the surprise birth of an elephant bird.

Horton Hatches the Egg contains some of Theodor Geisel's most inspired verse and some of his best ever illustrations, the dated style of which only accentuates their power and charm. A book no childhood should be without.