Like Charles Dickens, Dr. Seuss was a font of imaginative detail--it seems almost as if he couldn't stop himself from spouting out fanciful creatures, plants, landscapes, vehicles, buildings, and gizmos. Some Dr. Seuss books can be described as catalogs--long lists of Seussian fish, animals, or even new letters of the alphabet (as in On Beyond Zebra!). SCRAMBLED EGGS SUPER! is Dr. Seuss's bird book.

Of course, it's much more than a mere list of invented avians. Seuss dreams up a different habitat for each bird, such as Mt. Strookoo (home of the Mt. Strookoo Cuckoo) and the sheer cliffs and bluffs where Ziffs and Zuffs nest. He also creates special egg-collecting vehicles and tools such as Squitsches: long, retractable grippers used for grabbing ice-cold eggs laid by mournful-looking fowls perched on pointy icebergs.

Some birds (like the dumb, docile South-West-Facing Cranes) give up their eggs without a fuss, but others (like the Bombastic Aghast) defend theirs to the death, and Peter must risk his life when robbing these warlike birds' nests.

A kindergarten reading audience loved this book. They giggled at everything, including the airborne battalion of scary-looking birds "with their yammering, klammering, hammering beaks," who retaliate after their tiny pal is robbed of her bitty egg. And one knowledgeable six-year-old pointed out that the babies inside the eggs sitting on icebergs "are always going to die! They have to be warm, not cold!"

Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Circus and If I Ran the Zoo are two similar travelogues.