The Pinkish, Purplish, Bluish Egg is a 1963 children's storybook by Bill Peet.
A dove named Myrtle adopts a strangely-colored egg, which hatches an even stranger creature — a griffin. Myrtle raises her adoptive son, Zeke, to adulthood, despite the mocking and suspicion of the other birds, and her good deed comes in handy when a group of foxes and wolves start hanging around the area.
This book contains examples of the following tropes:
- All of the Other Reindeer: A jay calls the newly hatched griffin a freak. An owl alleges they need to get rid of him lest he cause trouble. Later, all the birds mock him when Myrtle has to hold up his hind end while he's learning to fly.
- Happily Adopted: Myrtle finds Zeke's egg with no mother in sight. She cares for the griffin and takes him under her protection before he's even hatched, and neither of them ever regrets it.
- Interspecies Adoption: Myrtle, a dove, becomes adoptive mother to a griffin (half-lion, half-eagle).
- Mama Bear: Myrtle charges the much bigger owl when he suggests getting rid of her newly-hatched son.
- Puff of Logic: Mentioned near the end of the book. The owl insists he's right about Zeke being unreal, and Zeke worries that this means he'll suddenly vanish. Myrtle tells him it's silly.
- Take a Third Option: The griffon finds himself and his more conventional bird neighbors menaced by a pack of foxes and wolves. He observes that his size, beak, and claws would probably allow him to simply kill the pack, but his adoptive turtledove mother insists that "violence is wrong" and that he should ignore the pack and hope they leave him alone. Instead, he decides to grab them by their tails and forcibly relocate them to an island off the coast, supposedly without hurting them.
- Would Hurt a Child: The owl suggests getting rid of the newly hatched Zeke on the suspicion that he might cause trouble later. Luckily, Zeke has a very protective adoptive mother.
