An engaging blend of personal narrative and environmental education.
An Icelandic rescue tradition pairs conservation urgency with childhood determination.
Paeff chronicles pale-skinned young Freya’s nighttime adventures on Iceland’s Westman Islands, where children stay up late during puffling season to rescue baby puffins that have landed in town instead of in the water. Drawing inspiration from a real-life brigade of volunteers known as the Puffling Patrol, the matter-of-fact narrative captures Freya’s determination to catch a puffling on her own after multiple fumbles, building to a satisfying moment of triumph. Ólafsdóttir’s gouache and colored pencil illustrations are dazzling, particularly in their sophisticated use of light and perspective. Nocturnal scenes glow with the luminescence of flashlight beams cutting through darkness and the ethereal shimmer of northern lights, while dramatic shifts in viewpoint—from aerial perspectives of the sleeping island to intimate close-ups of Freya and a puffling crouched by an excavator—create visual dynamism. The spreads depicting Freya’s failed rescue attempts demonstrate masterful use of white space, with sequential vignettes floating against emptiness to emphasize both the humor and frustration of a puffling escape. Diverse children work together with genuine camaraderie throughout. Extensive backmatter explains why pufflings need rescuing, details the Puffling Patrol’s origins, explains that children are especially well suited to this work (pufflings often hide in “kid-sized spaces”) and addresses the sobering reality of declining puffin populations due to climate change.
An engaging blend of personal narrative and environmental education. (puffin facts, bibliography, resources) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 9, 2026
ISBN: 9781665980227
Page Count: 40
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.
The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image of Gilligan’s Island’s S.S. Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593616673
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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