Review: The Penguin Lady by Carol A. Cole

 Release date: February 15th,  2012
Hardcover: 32-page, $17.95 9781607185277
Paperback: 32-page, $9.95  9781607185369
eBook-Downloadable-English: $9.95  9781607185451
eBook-Downloadable-Spanish: $9.95  9781607185543

Penlope Parker lives where I'd like to live - on Penguin Place! How cool an address is that?  Penelope is one lady who has a penchant for penguins. She even dresses in black and white and walks with a waddle.

For her birthday, her brother sent her a penguin from the Galapogos. Not to be outdone by their brother, Penelope's sister sent her two Rockhopper penguins from Argentina. Opening her front door one morning finds three more penguins on the doorstep. Oh, no, Penelope's little house is beginning to feel cramped.

Penguins are appearing from everywhere; four baby African Penguins and five Little Blue penguins from Australia arrived just before the six Royal penguins from an island close to Antarctica showed up. They just loved swimming in Penelope's pool!

As much as she loved the birds and wanted to give the orphan penguins a home, enough is enough! Penelope makes a frantic phone call to the local zoo and they are more than happy to give the penguins a new home.  This solved Penelope's dilemma of space but now her little house feels empty and Penelope is feeling a little lonely. Luckily, one of her neighbor's dalmation just had a litter of pups. Penelope loves the black and white puppies but she limits herself to just taking ONE!

Not only is this a cute story, but as with any Sylvan Dell book, it is most educational. I loved the pages at the end! Four pages of illustrated facts about varieties of penguins with a very nice map of different areas where they can be found. There's also a chart of heights for ten different penguins. Everytime I've reveiwed one of their books, I learn a lot.

For even more information and pages of cross- curricular teaching activities, please visit The Penguin Lady's home page.

One element that makes a great children's book is the quality of the illustrations and in The Penguin Lady, the illustrations are so much fun! Besides being large, Penelope and all the different penguins are shown with very expressive faces. I could just see the inquisitive and mischievous nature of the penguins.
The Penguin Lady is illustrated by Sherry Rogers.  You can visit the talented Ms. Rogers at her website.


Disclosure: A review copy of the book was provided by Sylvan Dell in exchange for my honest
opinion.