GOD CREATES PENGUINS

Two penguins celebrate their heavenly “creation day” and are sent to their new homes in this picture book that calls to mind elements of VeggieTales and Elephant and Piggie.

In a Creation Station that looks a bit like a warehouse, two penguins (one black-and-white, the other with yellow eyebrows) wait to have a meeting with God. When they’re admitted, God tells them about what penguins do. The birds, God says, will undergo a series of challenges and a fight to find out where they’ll each live: One will inhabit a tropical island, the other a cold Antarctic environment. However, the penguins instead happily solve the problem with a simple “rock, paper, flippers” game. The brief text appears as dialogue in cartoonish word balloons, and the story flows easily. The book’s main strength is in how it juxtaposes simple phrases and Russell’s comedic illustrations; for instance, the penguins are told they’re “great at fishing,” and they’re shown doing so with fishing poles. God is depicted as a giant, glasses-wearing humanoid with star-speckled skin and a brown beard. Modern conceits add humor, as when two angels sit at a desk in front of a corkboard featuring the “latest creation.” Peterson and Russell previously teamed up on God Creates a Snake (2019), and nods to that volume are sprinkled throughout the text.

A whimsical, tongue-in-cheek take on Creation for emergent readers.