bookshelf

LITTLE PUFFIN'S FIRST FLIGHT

Name: LITTLE PUFFIN'S FIRST FLIGHT
Author: Jonathan London
ISBN: 978-1-941821-40-4

by Jonathan London ; illustrated by Jon Van Zyle ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 2, 2015

A bracing nature adventure for animal-loving preschoolers

bookshelf

A horned puffin hatches, grows and flies for the first time on the Alaskan coast.

London’s characteristically lyrical, clipped free verse describes the meeting of two puffins, followed by nesting, tending their single egg and the hatching of their “hungry gray fuzz-ball.” Taking turns to guard the chick and hunt, Mother and Father Puffin raise Little Puffin to fledging. One night, spectacularly foregrounded against the rising moon by Van Zyle in three successive spreads, Little Puffin makes his way to the edge of the cliff and then jumps, first falling and then flying—to find his own mate four years later. With the exception of naming his puffin family, London largely avoids anthropomorphizing his subjects even as he uses figurative language his preschool audience will understand: “Dressed in her life jacket / of carefully fluffed feathers, / Mother Puffin bobs like a cork / in the icy cold ocean.” Scientific facts (puffins have heavy bones; their predators include gulls) are woven neatly into the brief, just-dramatic-enough narrative. Van Zyle keeps his palette realistically limited to cold grays and blues except for that tremendous yellow moon and the puffins’ beaks, relying on shifts in perspective and scale to maintain visual interest. In one humorous image, three herrings droop comically from Father Puffin’s beak. A two-page author’s note provides further information.

A bracing nature adventure for animal-loving preschoolers . (Informational picture book. 2-6)

Pub Date: March 2, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-941821-40-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Alaska Northwest Books

Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
HERE COMES SHOPKEEPER HIPPO
by Jonathan London ; illustrated by Gilles Eduar

- BOOK REVIEW
HERE COMES TRUCK DRIVER HIPPO
by Jonathan London ; illustrated by Gilles Eduar

- BOOK REVIEW
FROGGY FOR PRESIDENT!
by Jonathan London ; illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz

bookshelf

UNFUNNY BUNNY

by Kenan Thompson with Bryan Tucker ; illustrated by Tony Neal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 13, 2026

No laugh track required: This story should generate genuine giggles.

bookshelf

Saturday Night Live mainstay Thompson makes his picture-book debut with the tale of a young rabbit who discovers that being the class clown is harder than it looks.

To make a splash on his first day of school, Bunny decides to adopt a new persona: Funny Bunny. He performs his act for his classmates, who are a tough audience…or is the material the problem? (Sample joke: “What town does milk come from? Milk-waukee!”) Actually, Bunny wins over one classmate: Hedgehog thinks Bunny has comedy chops and just needs practice. This gives Bunny an idea: Why don’t they work together? (Thompson’s co-author knows something about collaborating on jokes: Tucker has been an SNL writer for two decades.) Bunny and Hedgehog’s writing sessions are fruitful, and when Bunny tries out his new material on his classmates, he brings down the house. Clearly, teamwork and persistence pay off in this silly yet heartening tale, although laughs aren’t Bunny’s only reward. In Hedgehog he has found a friend (and, from the looks of things, perhaps a manager). The book’s jokes, including two pages’ worth that conclude the story, will be manna for punsters, who presumably aren’t supposed to notice that there’s no qualitative difference between the jokes that amused Bunny’s class and the ones that bombed. Neal’s appealing digital art focuses heavily on reaction shots from an all-animal cast living in a world of amusement park colors.

No laugh track required: This story should generate genuine giggles. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026

ISBN: 9781250364814

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- SEEN & HEARD
Kenan Thompson Narrates ‘Unfunny Bunny’ Audiobook

bookshelf

ANIMAL SHAPES

by Christopher Silas Neal ; illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2018

Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.

bookshelf

You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!

What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?

Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)