This year's four Caldecott Honor books -- honored for their outstanding illustrations -- offer something for a wide range of young readers, from babies through pre-teens.

Here's a closer look at these literary gems:

• Author/artist Laura Vaccaro Seeger combines bold, brightly colored shapes with die-cut pages to offer the youngest readers an interactive science lesson in "First the Egg" (Roaring Brook, $14.95).

Seeger's concept couldn't be simpler: take various pairs and show how one becomes the other. For example, the book's cover has an egg-shaped die-cut; when readers turn the page they see that the egg has become a chicken. The ivory color of the eggshell, as seen through the die-cut cover, actually is part of the chicken's feathers.

Other nature pairs include tadpole and frog, caterpillar and butterfly, and seed and flower. Then Seeger adds a bit of whimsy by pairing some abstract concepts -- word and story, then paint and picture -- before bringing her text and illustrations around full circle to the egg.

For the youngest readers, this book is a visual treat that entertains as it educates. Slightly older readers, meanwhile, will enjoy the way Seeger uses the sturdy, die-cut pages to magically transform one object into another. (Ages 2-6, although even babies can enjoy this book.)

• Trixie and her Knuffle Bunny are inseparable. So it's natural that Trixie would take Knuffle Bunny to preschool with her. But -- horrors! -- it turns out that another preschooler named Sonja also owns a Knuffle Bunny, who accompanies her to school. After the two girls battle over whose Knuffle Bunny is best (they can't even agree on how to pronounce the name -- Trixie's "K-nuffle" vs. Sonja's "Nuffle"), their teacher takes the stuffed toys away until the end of the day.

But, as author/artist Mo Willems shows in "Knuffle Bunny Too" (Hyperion, $16.99), both girls wake up in the middle of the night and realize that their teacher has inadvertently sent them home with the wrong Knuffle Bunny. Parents exchange phone calls, which leads to a middle-of-the-night exchange of Knuffle Bunnies, and all is well once again.

Willems is a genius at capturing the emotional life of preschoolers, and both young readers and their parents will readily identify with the events depicted in "Knuffle Bunny Too." As usual, Willems adds further layers of humor with his illustrations, which mix photographs with cartoon-like art. (Ages 3-6.)

• In "Henry's Freedom Box" (Scholastic, $16.99), author Ellen Levine and artist Kadir Nelson offer readers a gripping, true story of a slave named Henry Brown, who literally mailed himself to freedom.

Levine tells the story simply and dramatically and Nelson's pencil, watercolor and oil illustrations help readers grasp the magnitude of Brown's desperation to become free. After friends nailed him into a wooden crate and left him at the post office in Richmond, Va., Brown spent 27 hours in the tightly confined space. Sometimes, as Nelson vividly shows, Brown was upside down, with the blood rushing to his head. He couldn't move or make any noise, or he might be discovered.

Brown eventually arrived safely in Philadelphia and became famous for his courage and ingenuity in escaping slavery. Brown also was given a nickname -- Henry "Box" Brown -- and wrote a book about his experience, which Levine cites in her brief bibliography.

Although "Henry's Freedom Box" is a picture book, it isn't for younger readers. Certain parts of the story are difficult to take, especially when Henry's wife and children are sold to a distant master. Older children, however, will find this book both memorable and inspiring. (Ages 8-12.)

• In his wonderful new picture book autobiography, "The Wall" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18), children's book author/artist Peter Sis uses his considerable artistic talents to capture what it was like to grow up in communist Czechoslovakia "behind the Iron Curtain."

An artist from an early age, Sis writes how he increasingly chafed under the artistic restrictions imposed by Czech officials and longed to express himself more fully in his art. Readers will especially enjoy reading the snippets from Sis' childhood journals and seeing some of his early artwork as they come to understand why, as an adult, he defected to the United States.

Sis enhances the natural interest of his story with eye-catching illustrations mostly done in black and white, with patches of red for symbolic emphasis. While the main story can be read fairly quickly, readers will want to linger over the many details included in Sis' illustrations. (Ages 8-12.)