Mr Penguin and the Lost Treasure

Mr. Penguin and the Lost Treasure
by Alex T. Smith
208 pages; ages 8-12
Peachtree, 2019

Mr. Penguin is a dapper gent, what with his hat and bow tie and satchel. He has just started a new business: Professional Adventurer. But it wasn’t going according to plan and he’s down to his last fish finger sandwich.

“It was supposed to have been nonstop Adventures—people ringing up with mysteries for him to solve, missing diamonds to find, jungles to run through under a shower of poison-tipped darts….” Instead, his phone stayed silent. And if he didn’t get an Adventuring job soon, there would be no more crabsticks!

Fortunately, the phone rings! Mr. Penguin’s services are required to find a Lost Treasure somewhere in the Museum of Extraordinary Objects. Accompanied by his sidekick, a karate-kicking spider named Colin, Mr. Penguin heads off on a crazy Indiana Jones-style quest.

What I like about this book:

The wacky characters, from Edith the pigeon lady to Mrs. Bones and her brother Montague.

The clues, including a carved saber-toothed ostrich tusk.

An X that literally marks the spot!

I like how Alex Smith uses color to help tell the story. Most pages include illustrations in black, white, and orange – great penguin colors. But as the adventurers descend into the darkness of the basement, the pages are gray with white text.

I like that there are lessons to learn. If a large knobby tree trunk floats by at exactly the same time you need to cross a river, you might want to check for teeth!

And I like that there is always a way to save the day, though it will invariably require a personal sacrifice. So carry extra candy bars – or fish finger sandwiches, as the case may be.

Beyond the Book: Have some fun with these Mr. Penguin activity sheets!

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Too Many Penguins!

365 Penguins
by Jean-Luc Fromental; illus by Joelle Jolivet
48 pages; ages 1-8
Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2006

Once again, a weather-inspired story. I know we're half-way to spring, but there's still plenty of ice and snow and windy cold in the days ahead... weather to make us feel like penguins.

This is a math book disguised as a silly story. On New Year's Day, a delivery man delivers a package. Inside: one penguin. There's no return address, no letter explaining who sent the package - only a note saying: "I'm number 1. Feed me when I'm hungry." Puzzling, but having a penguin in the house might be entertaining.

The next day the delivery man returns - with another package. Inside, another penguin. Day three, another penguin. By the end of January there were thirty-one penguins in the house. By the end of February the family is arguing about the best way to organize the penguins. Eventually the mystery is solved when Uncle Victor shows up and takes the penguins. Life returns to normal for a few hours until - ding-dong! The delivery man comes to the door with a large box.

This is an oversized book which, fully opened, is almost as tall as a small penguin. It's full of math problems (how quickly can you go broke buying fish for penguins) and raises questions about population. Mostly, it's just plain fun.

Review copy provided by library.

Penguins!

About Penguins (revised)
by Cathryn Sill; illus by John Sill
48 pages, ages 3-7
Peachtree Publishers, 2013

Whenever I go to a zoo, I always look for the penguin house. Who can resist watching the antics of these tuxedo-clad seabirds? They may not fly, but they move with such grace and precision beneath the water.

About Penguins is a new, revised version with updated material and an overview of seventeen species of these amazing birds. Each double-page spread features simple text and an illustration featuring one of the species. Cathryn gives us the science while John manages to capture great expressions on the birds' faces. Take the Royal Penguin (South Pacific) - in addition to the crown of yellow feathers, he manages to catch their most regal expression.

Readers learn the basic facts: penguins have special waterproof feathers; they can change direction quickly to avoid predators (at least while swimming underwater); and some eat squid. They don't all nest on ice - some build their nests in forests, in caves, or in burrows. And they don't all live in cold places - the Galapagos penguin lives in the tropics!

As with other books in the series, there is excellent material at the back: six pages of detailed notes that expand on each illustrated spread, plus a glossary and suggested books and websites.

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday round-up. Check out the other science books and resources reviewed this week. Review copy provided by the publisher.

And Tango Makes Three

And Tango Makes Three

by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell; illus by Henry Cole

32 pages, ages 3-8

Simon and Schuster, 2005

Every day, families of all kinds visit the animals that live in New York’s Central Park Zoo. But children and their parents aren’t the only families at the zoo.

“There are red panda bear families,” write Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. “There are monkey dads and monkey moms raising noisy monkey babies. There are toad families, and toucan families, and cotton-top tamarin families too.”

The most unusual family, though, is a penguin family: Roy, Silo and a baby named Tango. Roy and Silo are male Chinstrap penguins who prefer each others company. During breeding season they copied other penguin pairs, building a nest of stones. They even sat on an egg-shaped rock…but nothing happened.

So in 2000, when a penguin pair had one too many eggs to care for, the zookeeper brought the extra egg to Roy and Silo’s nest. When the chick hatched, Roy and Silo fed her. They taught her their special family song (to sing when she was hungry) and kept her warm at night.

I like the tender story about the affection, pair bonding and parenting of these two tuxedo-clad guys; apparently same-sex couples aren’t all that unusual in animals. But such relationships tend to be short term and soon after the book was published, Roy and Silo’s relationship dissolved. Silo, it seems, lost his heart to a female from California.

November is Picture Book Month. Review copy borrowed from a library.