PENGUINS LOVE THEIR ABC'S

Penguins play with the ABCs.

Six penguins—Tiger Lily, Tulip, Dandelion, Bluebell, Violet, and Broccoli—love to play games with the alphabet. Mama Penguin has hidden all the letters in the snow with a clue above each one, turning the hunt into a guessing game with questions directed to readers. Beneath (surprise) a stalk of broccoli, penguin Broccoli finds the letter B for his name. “Do you know the first letter of your name?” Dandelion finds flowers, proclaiming a special love for the yellow ones. “Which color flower do you like best?” The roly-poly, black-and-white penguins with orange beaks and feet have wide, completely round eyes and big, neon-colored glasses. The only distinction among them is the color of the glasses, which matches their names. The vocabulary explored is for the most part common: there’s Q for question mark, R for radish, U for their lucky underpants (they’ll help find the rest of the letters, though what makes them lucky is not explained), Y for yo-yo, and Z for zucchini. Once they’ve found all the letters, how will they get them back to Mama? In a wheelbarrow, of course. What will she make for dinner? Alphabet soup!

Young listeners learning their ABCs will enjoy both the interactivity and the penguins’ antics.