The creative team behind I Am Henry Finch offers a picture book Plato for little ones, as Ergo the chick, from inside her egg, contemplates the world—and her place in it.

Ergo wakes up and sets off to explore the world. The first things she discovers are her toes. Wiggle, wiggle. Then she finds her wings. Flap, flap. Then her beak. And her legs. She has discovered everything! I am the world and the world is me, she thinks. Until she considers the wall around her. Is that part of her, too? And is that noise from beyond the wall . . . something else? At once humorous and inspirational, this lighthearted foray by Alexis Deacon and Viviane Schwarz is for dreamers and philosophers, the foolish and the enlightened—a picture book experience told with simplicity and style.

"Ergo the chick, from inside her egg, contemplates the world--and her place in it"--

This is simultaneously a sweet story of a beginning and a sly exploration of epistemology (Ergo’s name works nicely as a Cartesian reference as well as an egg-sounding term), with an additional message about the value of breaking past isolation to connect. Schwarz’s simple, fluid line and watercolor illustrations get a lot of mileage out of Ergo’s wide, wondering eyes, and the palette stealthily begins to add tones on top of the basic yellow and black as Ergo grasps more about the world. Kids of different ages will appreciate this at different levels, but they’ll all be prompted to think more about how they know what they know.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Now for a picture book to truly work it must be a collaboration between the story/text and the art. Mr. Deacon’s text is fantastic. Ms. Schwarz’s art, however, elevates it.
—A Fuse #8 Production