Chick and Brain: Egg or Eyeball is a humorous visual comedy that will make you laugh your socks off!

This picture book is not all it's cracked up to me (haha, jokes!). It might seem like a children's book from a few steps away, but take a closer look and it's an amusing selection of comedy for both young and old alike!

In the first chapter, Chick and Brain argue over whether an egg is an egg or an eyeball. Chapter 2 introduces Spot the dog, who also agrees with Chick but creates a bit of conflict. Chapter 3 introduces Puff the cat, but creates some drama over his lunch time favourites. And then the last chapter introduces Something Else entirely.

The illustrations give me my 90s childhood vibes. That made it quite nostalgic, and having the comedy be so good to really hit home. This book also gave me Dexter and DeeDee vibes with the smarter character and not as intelligent one. Serious, so nostalgic! It's great!

Overall, this book is amusing and a quite read. If you're looking to spice up your shelf with something fun, light and hilarious then grab this book!

Four out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Candlewick Press for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review. ( )

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. ( )

Is the smooth, white, oval-shaped object an egg - as Chick insists - or an eyeball - as Brain does? Each character is sure they are right, and readers might be surprised by the ending! Most pages have 2-4 panels. ( )

The trio of Chick (a manners-conscious bird), Brain (a goofy human), and Spot (an excitable dog) are back for another adventure after Smell My Foot. In this title, Brain spots an spherical item atop of a mysterious heap of colors and automatically assumes it is an eyeball. Chick, however, insists that it is an egg and could be one of his brothers or sisters. When Spot awakens from the top of the heap, a new wrinkle forms when he is hungry for lunch and starts eyeing up the egg. Soon new friends join the melee. How will it turn out? And who will be right -- Brain or Chick -- about the origins of the shiny white object?

After being pleasantly surprised by how funny Smell My Foot was, I was looking forward to this title. However, it didn't quite live up to expectations. While the final reveal was in fact quite funny, it felt like there was a lot of tedious text to get through before that. A bunch of that is repetition, but not necessarily in the best way (i.e., it's more of Brain and Chick going back and forth with "eye" / "egg" than an actual turn of phrase with lyrical cadence). There is a repeated 'joke' about which end of a chicken the egg emerges from, which just seemed inappropriate. The other bit that is repeated is a joke about having someone over for lunch, with the speaker meaning they want to eat the invitee. This joke has been done a thousand times and having it repeated over and over in this book felt old quick; however, younger readers might be hearing this joke for the first time and really enjoy it, unlike me.

The visual gag with the unknown heap being a pile of creatures who each awaken in a new chapter was pretty good, plus the idea of short chapters in early readers is always good for those kids who are not quite ready for longer chapter books yet but are pretty much over the shorter, simpler early readers. It will give those readers a feeling of accomplishment to read a book with multiple chapters. However, I feel like there are better titles out there to achieve this same goal. ( )

As stupid, silly and obsessed with etiquette as the first, but this sequel did manage to genuinely surprise me with the twist at the end. So bonus star awarded. ( )