Hen’s romance with Fox, introduced in the breathless picture book The Chicken Thief (U.S. edition: Enchanted Lion, 2010), is maturing nicely, and the couple has reached the next milestone in their life together: Hen is with child—or, with egg. But the cupboard is bare, and she passes the egg off to Fox for some bonding time while she and Crab venture out with a fishing pole. What starts out as a calm day at sea turns into a monumental Big Fish Story, as the duo is carried aloft by a raptor and dropped into its nest of Big Baby Birds with gaping maws. An escape immediately plunges them into an epic sea battle with something that looks a bit like the Loch Ness Monster, but Hen, victorious, eventually arrives home toting the dead sea creature. Her success is stifled when she discovers a broken egg shell next to a frying pan on the kitchen table. About to bean the infanticidal Fox with the frying pan, she sees in the nick of time that he’s cuddling a hybrid fox-chicken baby. Clever illustrations carry this amusing wordless sequel. (Ages 4–8)