Under the egg is written by Laura Marx Fitzgerald and this is actually a children’s book and I am not really that kind of person who gravitates towards these kinds of books anymore, but I was really intrigued by its description so thought of giving it a try.
This novel follows a 13 year old Theodora Tenpenny or Theo as she preferred to be called in this book. Theo lives in the New York City and she lives in a house that is falling apart. She lives with her mother who is extremely inattentive and definitely has some mental issue which is referred to but not talked about too much. Theo grandfather has recently passed away, and now Theo is left not only to take care of her, but also to take care of her mother.
Theo is shown as a very resourceful person, she picks things off the streets and finds different ways to recycle it and use it for her benefit. There is a garden in the back so she tries not to grocery shop too much because they only have a couple of hundred dollars left with them. Theo has accepted this reality, but is also upset with her grandfather for not helping her out of it a bit more before he passed away.
The reason this book is called under the egg is because there is a painting her grandfather hints towards before his death, so Theo spent a lot of time investigating trying to figure it out what he meant by this. And she finally discovers underneath the painting of the egg that looks to be very expensive and very old. Now that could be Theo grandfather’s painting that happened to be bought along time ago, but the catch is he worked as a security guard in the metropolitan museum of art and Theo begins to wonder if he had stolen this painting from there, but before she arrive to this conclusion she decides to enlist the help of some new found friends to figure out where exactly this painting came from, who painted it and how it came to be in her grandfather’s hands.
I was just blown away by how much I really enjoyed this novel. I was not expecting to love children’s novel so much, but the plot and the writing style worked wonders for me. The art and history related to it just made the reading experience wonderful and there are lots of fun characters that I enjoyed reading about.
IF you know anyone who belongs to this age group for which this novel is written for, or you want to go on an awesome adventurous trip I will highly recommend you to check this novel out.