Book Club: Book Review of Fiona and the Easter Egg Hunt

 

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What an adorable book! Fiona and the Easter Egg Hunt is one in a series of children's books about a real-life hippopotamus born at the Cincinnati Zoo. In this hardcover book by Richard Cowdrey, children follow Fiona and her prehensile-tailed porcupine friend, Rico, on the journey to create, hide, and find colorful Easter eggs. 

Who is Fiona? 

Fiona was born prematurely on January 24, 2017. She received around-the-clock care from Cincinnati Zoo's animal care staff and even help from nurses at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital to help her during those first years. While the average newborn hippo weighs between 55 and 120 pounds, Fiona weighed only 29 pounds. She is the smallest-born hippo to ever survive. Fiona is now a big sister to Fritz, who was born on August 3, 2022. 

About the Book 

Fiona and the Easter Egg Hunt is a fantastical tale of two friends seeking to give their other animal friends a fun spring experience. When Fiona and Rico see that the zoo will be holding an Easter Egg Hunt soon, they decide to create one for their animal friends. 

This dream to create an animal Easter Egg Hunt is the theme of the story. Fiona and Rico both decorate and fill the eggs before they set off to hide them. Fiona, wearing bunny ears and carrying the basket, and Rico hide the eggs in trees.

At one of their first stops, Mrs. Swann requests their help so she can gather grass and leaves to make her nest cozier for her six swan eggs. Both Fiona and Rico agree to watch the eggs. During their time watching the eggs, the basket of eggs for the Easter Egg Hunt get dumped out and must be retrieved. If your child is very observant, they will see that one of the white swan eggs finds its way into the basket of Easter Eggs. 

In the rest of the book, we follow Fiona and Rico as they hide the eggs. And then Mrs. Swan finds one of her eggs missing. Now all the animals help to find her egg. But Fiona is the lucky one who spots it as it is hatching. And the little cygnet thinks Fiona is his mama! 

Our Thoughts 

While it might be helpful to have read others in the series prior to reading this book, I don't think it is necessary. I did explain a bit about Fiona to our children prior to reading the book. I have enjoyed watching videos of her and her brother as they play together and do hippo things. 

This is an adorable children's book. While it focuses more on a secular aspect of Easter, the message of bringing joy to others, helping others, and perseverance is a good one for any children's book. As long as you are okay with Easter Egg Hunts, I think this would be a great book for families with young children. 

I love that it allowed us the opportunity to talk about the different animals in the book, such as the

• prehensile-tailed porcupine 
• swans
• koalas
• polar bear
• tortoises 
• giraffes
• and more! 

And because the baby swan first sees Fiona when it hatches, we discussed baby birds and imprinting, too. 

Our son and daughter just loved the book! They thought it was very cute. And now our daughter wants all the books in the series. 

Wordless Wednesday: Easter Egg Hunt

Our children had a great time at our church making crafts, playing games, and hunting for Easter eggs even though everything was moved indoors due to the rainy weather. 

Holidays: Ukrainian Easter Egg Traditions

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My family has been decorating Easter Eggs since before I was born. My grandpop was always the one in charge of the decorating of the eggs with my mom, while my grandmom would handle the dying of the eggs with my help when I was little. After my grandpop died, my mom and I continued the tradition at our own home and now we shared it with my husband and three children.

The History

Eggs have long been associated with the source of life and with the birth of Christianity. The symbol of the egg was likened to that of the tomb of Jesus. Decorating both hard-boiled eggs and raw eggs was a tradition among the Ukrainians during pagan times.  When the people accepted Christianity in the late 900s, the egg was adopted into the Easter celebration to break the fast of Lent and was decorated with Christian symbols. The old pagan symbols were given new life and new Christian meanings. For example, the sun designs now stood for the Son of God, dots would come to present the tears of Mary, and the triangles represented the Trinity.

There are two types of Ukrainian Easter eggs: the krashanky (a hard-boiled egg which is dyed a solid color) and the pysanky (which is raw egg that is decorated and dyed and not eaten). Most families today decorate and dye only hard-boiled eggs but my family also used to decorate blown eggs. (These were disposed of when I was little after one exploded in my grandparents’ living room. I guess it wasn’t properly prepared.)

There are many different legends about the origins of the Ukrainian Easter Eggs. One tells of Mary, the mother of Jesus, preparing a basket of eggs to take to Pontius Pilate while her son was imprisoned. Her tears fell upon the eggs, creating the dots of many colors that are still drawn on today. Another legend tells of a young woman who was returning home from the market with her basket of eggs and jug of water. She came upon a man sitting on a rock and offered him water. The stranger accepted her offer of water and she went on her way. When she arrived at home, she discovered her eggs had transformed into pysanky. The stranger was Jesus.

We haven't used natural dyes but we will in the future!

Natural Dyes

Yellow	Orange peels (a pale yellow) Yellow onion skins (only soak for a short while) Turmeric (bright yellow)
Orange	Yellow onion skins (check for color) Chili powder (pale orange-buff)
Red	Beets Red onion skins
Blue	Red cabbage leaves (light blue – less time; deep blue – soak overnight)
Beige/Brown	Yellow onion skins (long soak) Coffee

Decorating

The writing tool or stylus used for decorating the eggs with melted wax is called a kistka (plural, kistky). My family always used an un-sharpened pencil with a pin stuck into the eraser end. And I recommend beeswax, as it is absorbed more readily into the pores of the egg so it ‘sticks’ to the egg better than man-made paraffin.

Safety Reminder! Melted beeswax is HOT. Do NOT allow young children to participate. Do NOT leave them unattended around melted beeswax. In my family, I was not allowed to participate in the actual decorating with melted beeswax until I was 14 years old. We only recently allowed our teen to start helping with this part of the egg-decorating process.

Designs

There are many different meanings for the various geometric designs, plant designs, and animal designs.

Many eggs will contain lines used for division that encircle the entire egg. They can be thought of as symbolizing eternal life.

Nets and sieve designs have been found on pysanky long before the egg was adopted as a Christian symbol. They can be linked to the fisherman’s net as many of Jesus’ followers were fishermen and became fishers of men.

Another symbol adopted by the Christians was the sun or star to represent God. There are many variations upon this design. 

Among the plant designs there are vines, roses, pine trees, leaves, and wheat. Animal designs are not as easy to make as others due to the small drawing surface but the fish, a symbol of Christianity, as well as chickens, rams’ horns, deer, and horses have been drawn on the eggs.

Of course, there are many other cultures and countries that also dye and decorate Easter eggs including Russia, Serbia, and other nations but this is how my family continues our Ukrainian tradition.

I used our Magic Stix Washable Markers to create the designs on paper this year! 

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